Chapter XVII: The Lord of Flame

I must have stood there many minutes, lost in fearful reverie. Unconsciously I heard Sam and Xenora moving about below, heard faintly the murmur of their conversation. At last my grim forebodings of the horror that was to come were interrupted by Sam's cheerful hail, and I went below. I came upon Xenora in the cabin. She was arrayed in a fresh suit of my white flannels that Sam had laid out for her; and evidently she had been under the shower, for drops of water still gleamed on her dark hair. She looked freshly, incredibly beautiful, dressed even as she was.

I must have flushed somewhat, for she laughed at me. But she showed no anger or displeasure--she had not resented what I had done. She looked squarely at me with those cool violet eyes that shone with humor and human feeling. I read honest understanding in their clear depths, and suddenly I went to her and held out my hands. She took them in her slender ones.

Presently we went in together to Sam's wonderful feast. He had the little dining room spick and span as usual, with the windows screened and the white lights going to shut out the terrible red glare. It was very cool in the soft breezes from the fans, and we three sat down in comfort to the delicacies he had prepared.

Sam still remembered what I had taught him, so many years ago, of Xenora's language, so that he was able to converse in it. "It'll be some revelation to the old dead-heads at the Academy if we ever get back and publish our account," he said. "They have never admitted telepathy, just because the phenomenon of thought transference depends upon such delicate attunement of minds that it cannot be reproduced at will. Of course, we don't know just how much the radio had to do with it in your case. Undoubtedly it served as a carrying wave, at first at least. But anyhow, it would be some bombshell to toss among my old associates!"

"Who cares what they think about it?" I said. "We've found her. That's all that matters!"

Xenora sat down eagerly. I found joy in watching her eat. She manipulated her unfamiliar fork with instinctive culture, and seemed to like Sam's viands immensely. And she ate with the restrained eagerness of one who has not touched food for some time. What misfortunes had the brave girl been through?

Presently, when she was somewhat satisfied, Sam began questioning her in an effort to find out something of the strange world about us. "Where do your people live?" he began.

"Once Lothar was an empire that girdled the central sea. But many lifetimes ago the evil power of Mutron arose, and our people were conquered by the slaves of the Lord of Flame. Now there are but a handful of my race, living in the forests by the northern cliffs. And even they are taken to serve the Lord of Flame----"

"The Lord of Flame! What is that?" Sam cried in amazement.

"It is a dreadful thing--a serpent of green fire that dwells in the violet mists of the chasm of Xath," she said hastily. "But let us not speak of it. No man speaks of the Lord of Flame, for it hears--stay! Oh, horror! Do you not--feel it?"

And indeed, at her words, I felt a strange and alien thrill, as if the revealing searchlight of some dreadful power had been suddenly thrown upon me, as if some strange wind of fear had blown upon my soul. I shivered involuntarily, and crouched closer to the others, trying to drive the horror from my mind.

"God!" Sam breathed hoarsely. "What can we be up against?"

In a moment the girl went hurriedly on, as though to change our thoughts to other things. "Many sleeps ago I was taken by the men of Mutron, and put in the power of Xath. They sent me on a ship to fight the Lunaks. We fell in with a vast number of them, and they brought the vessel down. The fire-crystal was torn from my back in the wreck, and I was free. I ran for the trees, but the Lunak caught me. And that was the last I knew, until I woke, from my dream of--of----"

She turned to me with a little smile, as if such weirdly incredible adventures were to be taken as a matter of course. I could not speak for the pity and horror that were mingled with my admiration for her courage. But I could, and did, reach under the table and take her hand. Thereafter each of us contrived--after a fashion--to eat with one hand.

That brief and puzzling account of her adventures was all that Xenora was able to give us until experience would enlarge our common vocabularies. Certainly it offered plenty of food for conjecture. She had little scientific knowledge; and when Sam continued his questions, the accounts she gave of the origin and meaning of the strange things she mentioned smacked more of myth than of history.

"Has the Lord of Flame always been, Xenora?"

"No," the Green Girl answered. "Back in the beginning, ten thousand lifetimes past, the men of Lothar ruled, and there was no Mutron to carry them to Xath. The warriors of Lothar were very brave. They fought the Lunaks, and hunted the beasts of the plain. The kings of Lothar reigned in a hundred cities that ringed the central sea, and there was food and joy for all.

"But the Lunaks were very wise. When the great men of Lothar brought weapons of fire to fight them, they went into the jungle and laid an egg, and guarded it, and there sprang up the Lord of Flame! It is a serpent of green fire, as thick as a mountain and as long as a river! All the warriors of Lothar went to meet it, and it slew them with a breath of fire! It took slaves of our people and carried them into the fire-pit of Xath.

"And from that day, through countless lifetimes, our people have been worshipers and slaves of the Lord of Flame. Those who are taken are no longer as men, but as sleepers walking, with the fire-crystal on their backs. They fly in ships of Mutron, the City of the Sleepers, and rule with a heavy hand in the name of the Lord of Flame. None escape them!"

"Well, I'll be d--er--flabbergasted!" Sam exploded. His face was a study. Incredulous disbelief was there, and amazement, and something of fear and horror, too. What the girl said had all the earmarks of a fairy tale. But we had seen the metal upon her body, and the purple stains--and we had felt that sudden, inexplicable wave of fear.

"Is it possible? Mel, it can't be! It's too fantastic!"

I could make no answer. "And you, Xenora. You were taken by that thing?" I cried in sudden horror.

"I was taken in a ship, and carried to Mutron, the City of Fear. There they fastened on me the fire-crystal. Then my mind was in a sleep, and my limbs did not what I willed. Until the ship fell my life was a nightmare of toil and terror. The Lunak took me, and I knew nothing until you found me."

Xenora still seemed rather weak and tired from her terrible ordeal. After we had eaten, Sam and I conducted her over the ship, with a view to convincing her of the wonderful power of the machine and thus to quiet her fear of that mysterious menace. We started the engines and moved the machine a little. I fired the gun for her edification, to show how the monster had been killed, and Sam showed her how to blow the siren, and even let her pull the cord. Then we took her back to a stateroom, and turned it over to her.

As she went into the room, Sam proposed that he and I go hunting. His real object, I think, was to get some fresh meat for the little winged plant, but we wished to learn as much as possible of the fauna and flora about us.

I was not eager to leave the machine, but we were armed with the best of weapons, and there seemed to be little danger. Then, we intended to be gone only a few minutes. When we were ready to start I tapped on Xenora's door, to tell her that we were leaving, but she made no answer. I suppose that she was already asleep.

We climbed up on deck, and closed the hatch behind us.