CHAPTER XIX.

WITHIN THE GATE-HOUSE.

I could see still less now; and it was doubtless my very limitation of vision which added to the sense of fear and awe that surged at me. An abyss here, dark and soundless, the air was heavy, motionless, save as it moved past us with our forward flight. Air that now was foul as though heavy with the hot breath of the unseen monsters.

There was no visible ceiling, no walls. But, as though my pupils were expanding in this greater darkness, I saw presently a black surface beneath us; and in another moment saw that we were flying barely a hundred feet above it.

A level spread of silent water. There may have been a black luminosity to it; a phosphorescence, black, yet visible. I seemed, after another interval, to be staring over a great distance.

A silent sea lay spread here under us. A vast area of water lying here like a great black shroud. A scum seemed on its dead, unriffled surface. A silent sea, yet it breathed with a slow rise and fall, as though with labored breath it lay dying. A world apart.

I had thought our turgid ocean depths fearsome. But here was a new quality--a dark foul sullenness--this silent sea aloof, remote here in the bowels of our earth. I shuddered as I stared, for it seemed to me suddenly that only the dead should gaze upon such a place as this.

And yet I knew that there were living things here. Creatures alive, but only in that one thing akin to living humans. Monsters lurked here, foul spawn of things unnameable, of form and manner and horror beyond all conception of the human mind.

I looked away at last.

This soundless abyss! But presently I began to hear a murmur; a surge; a roar. The water roaring at the flood-gates. And soon I saw that there was no longer water beneath us; a naked black rock surface.

Entt whispered suddenly. “Look--out there!”

Far away I saw a dull-red point of light. No! It was not far; a few hundred feet--a dull-red smoldering torch. It moved. A black shapeless blur seemed with it. A living creature slithering away on the rock surface? Formless, soundless: I was grateful for the concealing darkness. There are things which it is not good for human eyes to see--things that mark the mind with horror.

I did not want to see it, yet I stared. And with imagination beyond curbing, I futilely tried to supply a head out there on the black rocks, or a giant black body, or legs and a tail. They are all words with meaning to our human mind. But this was none of those. My imagination was blessedly futile!

For this thing, though perhaps it was partially visible, was beyond my conception. The eye--was it an eye? Or a fiery breath, congealed in the air? Or a heart--the essence of the thing’s being--nakedly visible? The red glow mercifully vanished, with only a dim radiance remaining, lingering like an infernal wraith of something which had been there and now was gone.

We flew onward. The sound of the rushing water was monstrous ahead of us.

Entt said: “We will land here. If there are Gians, they must not see us coming.”

We left the aëro in a recess at the summit of a small rise. Invisible again, we started forward on foot. What revulsion I had felt, flying in the air and gazing down to where monsters might lurk in the darkness, was intensified now. Here on the rocks, walking, seeing nothing, hearing only that monstrous torrent ahead, I felt my flesh creeping with horror. Why, any moment something unspeakable, lurking here, might spring upon us.

* * * * *

“Keep hold of me, both of you,” Entt whispered.

Silent shadows, we walked swiftly. The ground was rough, broken now into great crags among which we climbed, steadily ascending.

There was light ahead--a milk-white glow, faint as star-dust. And a jagged black wall, clifflike, rising into the void beyond my vision.

A few minutes of climbing, and the roar grew. It beat upon me deafeningly. It seemed for a moment to engulf all my senses. A titan roaring--this torrent of water. An infuriated titan--yet still in leash. The milk-white radiance broadened; beside us the rock wall now was close.

Entt stopped us. We stood at the summit of the rise up which we had come. Entt spoke, shouting at us now, for the blare of dashing water tore at his words and flung them away.

“There is the gate-house. I think there are no Gians here.”

We followed his gestures with our gaze. I stood peering, holding my weapon in my hand.

From here a path led down the rocks to the right. A hundred feet away down there the cliff wall rose sheer, smooth and black. The path, from where we were standing, went down the declivity and came to a small door, a gateway in an artificial wall.

Beyond it, looking down upon the wall from this greater height, I could see a small inner courtyard, with the wall inclosing it, and another door. Beyond that, a narrow, precipitous flight of metal stairs, with a wall around the bottom of them, led upward a hundred feet. Up there, perched like some aerie against the cliff-face, was a small black building, the gate-house. It hung there, with a dim oval of radiance from within marking its window.

Tad shouted at my ear: “If those courtyard doors are open--Or we might climb the walls.”

Those courtyard walls seemed no more than ten feet high. No Gians were here, and the whole place appeared deserted.

“Wait a moment,” Entt cautioned. “If there is any one here, we’ll see movement.”

The little metal house up there on its perch seemed unoccupied. Its door was ajar, showing a slit of light, and the window on this side was open. The room within was lighted. Was any one there? We waited, closely watching, for any shadow of movement.

My attention wandered to the vaster scene spread before us. The milk-white radiance illumined the distance. Beyond the path and the small courtyards there was a sudden drop, a thousand feet perhaps--a void here, all at that lower level. The cliff wall, to which the gate-house clung, went down that thousand feet--and up out of sight overhead. And stretched off in the milky distance. Smooth, black and sheer.

But there were lines marking it into great rectangles; giant blocks of metal out of which it was built. Not a cliff, but a titanic dam! I could see only this end of it--twenty miles of it possibly. At about the level of the gate-house, the water was surging through it, in a tremendous horizontal gash. It stretched off and lost itself in the blur of distance. And through the gash the wall of water was arching out and falling a thousand feet.

Uncounted Niagaras! A million? I could fancy so. A million Niagaras, piled one upon the other for a thousand feet of height; laid end to end for hundreds of miles. An utterly inconceivable torrent, falling a thousand feet into a white sea of foam down below--a boiling, lashing sea hundreds of miles wide, leaping and tumbling away into other cañons. White-lashed water, catching what little light was here, reflecting it as a milky radiance.

There was wind here, its roar mingling with the greater roar unnoticed. Wind whirling and plucking at us. Spray, even up here. Giant spirals of upflung mist. The salt tang of the sea-spume whipped and sucked and flung by the wind.

* * * * *

We stood only a moment. No Gians were here. Why would there be? This water could not surge through that wall for very long without tearing it away. Inconceivable torrent! But it was a mere slit in the wall--the dribble of a child’s spillway on the shore of a sea. Our great oceans were up there--pressing to get down. What Gian would stay here on guard, with all his fellows escaping to safety?

We crept cautiously down the path. The wind whirled us; the spray, suddenly leaping in some chance gust, drenched us. I clung to Tad. Entt I could not see. I felt a sudden mild electric shock from Tad’s robe. He cried out involuntarily; became visible so that I saw him beside me. His hands tore at his hood; his startled white face appeared.

Then he grinned. “Ruined! It’s off, Jeff. You can see me, can’t you?”

The water had evidently short-circuited his robe. And in a moment mine went the same.

Entt cut out his current. We flung back our hoods and took off our gloves. The freedom of it was pleasant, but we were no longer invisible.

“What of it?” said Tad. “There isn’t any one here.”

We came to the low door in the first wall. It opened to our touch. The courtyard was empty.

I clutched my weapon, with its lever adjusted to give the stabbing flash. It seemed to aim readily, very much like an automatic. There was a reassuring security in the feel of it. At a hundred feet I could drill any one we might come upon.

There were inner doors to rooms in this courtyard wall. We crept upon them one by one; flung them open, tense to meet what might be within. All were empty. Small empty rooms, with evidence of the Gian garrison here hastily departed.

We passed the inner wall door. No one here. We climbed the long metal ladder up the cliff-face to the gate-house.

I led, with Tad next. “Easy, Jeff! Hang on--don’t get dizzy. By the infernal, what a place!”

The ladder seemed to sway under us. In spite of all my flying experience, I found myself clinging, with senses whirling for a moment. It seemed that ladder was a spider web hanging over the chaos of water. The white turmoil of spume engulfed us.

A slow, patient climb. We stood at last on a small metal grid, the platform at the top of the ladder. The gate-house door was ajar.

Tad gripped me as we braced ourselves in the wind. “You’ve kept the projector dry?”

“Yes.” I had shielded it with a fold of my robe.

He gestured. “I’ll shove the door, Jeff. We’ll rush in together. Get back, Entt. Ready, Jeff?”

“No! Stoop here, on one side. I’ll kick it open. We’ll wait and see--”

With my foot I swung the door inward. We crouched to one side. Nothing came out, nor was there any sign of movement in there. Weapon ready, I advanced to where I could see all the room. A square metal apartment of perhaps twenty feet, it seemed to occupy the entire little house. One window was here beside the door, another window faced the maelstrom of the dam. A bunk, a few pieces of furniture.

A table near the farther window held a square metal tablet, no larger than my chest. The dim interior light shone on it; switches and wires; dials; a glowing bowl of radiance, like the fluorescence of an atomic tube. The gate mechanism!

My heart pounded as I gazed at it. This little thing--diabolical! But Entt knew how to operate it. A minute now and we would start it closing the great gates.

We advanced into the room, cautiously, then with a rush. I whirled with my weapon ready. Tad stood alert, tense, his eyes roving every corner. Entt dashed for the mechanism, and hastily seated himself at the table.

* * * * *

There was a movement behind me! In the outer doorway stood Rhana! She flung off a long, wet cloak. “So? You did come?” She advanced a step and then leaped for Entt.

A panther’s leap! I met it with the stabbing light of my weapon; caught the sheathlike shield of her body; struck her full. There was a flare--a wave of vibration came surging back at me.

She was unharmed. A glow was around her; it streamed like a mantle down from her headdress. Her leap carried her to Entt. He rose up, was caught half turning. And then he crumpled, slumped and fell at her feet.

Tad and I rushed at her. And I saw that Tad had staggered back; he fell, but he was alive, shouting: “Jeff! Look out--run!”

Rhana whirled at me. I fired again. The flash was reflected upward; the room ceiling reddened for an instant where it struck.

“Run, Jeff!”

Tad was on his knees. I leaped forward--and struck the radiance surrounding Rhana as though it were a solid wall. A wall of vibration. The flesh of my arm burned; my robe shriveled about me. I was dashed back and fell; my weapon clattered to the floor.

Rhana had ignored my attack. An instant only she stooped over the table, then she turned from the instruments. I caught a glimpse of her face. Her lips were parted in a mocking smile. She went past Tad and me before we could rise; she caught up her cloak, went through the doorway. The metal door closed upon us.

Failure! It pounded at my heart--failure now at the last!

I was striving to get up.

“Jeff--you all right?”

Tad got to his feet, wavering, almost falling again. I stood with him in a moment, stood shaking. My left arm hung limp and my legs were almost unable to hold me. The smell of burned flesh, noisome, was heavy about us. My arm was burned; Tad was scorched. Both our robes were shriveled and charred about us.

We lurched to where Entt lay huddled on the floor, then I pulled Tad away.

“Dead?” he asked.

I gasped. “Yes--don’t look, Tad. His face--burned where she struck him--it’s--too badly burned.”

Thank God he was dead!

Failure! It pounded at us, beyond thought of Entt, or ourselves. These gates, this torrent!

The mechanism lay inert where Rhana had demolished it. But more than that--

“Jeff, listen! Good God!”

Monstrous roar and surge of the water. But there were other sounds in it now--a muffled rumbling, far away, a vague blended rumble, crashing, tearing, as of great mountains of rock split and torn and moved away. It was growing into a tumult--sweeping nearer, louder.

“Jeff!”

The window by the broken mechanism was closed; but its heavy pane was transparent. We could see the dam through it. A mile away, as we stared, a great segment of metal moved outward, broke and fell into the torrent. The dam was crumbling!

A snapping violet light, huge as a rainbow, was out there, darting along the wall as far as we could see into the distance--a powder train of light, laid by the Gians, which now Rhana had released. It ate and tore and ripped at the wall. Another segment crumbled and fell--a mountain of metal rock, instantly engulfed by the greater surge of water from behind it; engulfed and flung down and lost as though it were a pebble.

The seething white abyss was visibly higher now. In ten minutes more it would be up here to the gate-house level, its backed-up water surging into the dark realm of the monsters, surging everywhere.

“Tad--it’s breaking!” Was that my voice, so calm in the midst of a cataclysm like this? “Breaking, Tad. We can’t do anything about it. Just get out of here--”

His eyes were big, luminous as torches; his white face expressionless with the shock of it.

Failure!

“Yes, Jeff. We’d better get away.”

The window near the broken mechanism was closed by its heavy thick pane. We found now that the other window was closed! And the door! We pulled at them. With all our shattered strength we tore at them. Futile! We were trapped. A metal cage, now, this little house clinging to the rocks, with the mounting torrent already risen almost to engulf it!