CHAPTER XIV

THE BATTLE OF THE CITY

Raphael raised his right hand and called upon the storm. As he did this, thunder was heard and black clouds formed in the west. For a moment silence brooded over the plain, broken only by the deep roar of the machine city. The light failed rapidly and a saffron glare shadowed the hills and turned the fields to yellow-green. Great thunder-clouds rolled up like monstrous sulphur ships and advanced on the city of the Sorcerer.

At first a gentle wind rustled the still leaves of the forest and bent the grass in rippling waves as it swept forward in gusts across the plain. All the animals crept away in terror to their lairs and forms in the thickets until the boy was left alone with the eagles.

A blue-white flash of lightning forked across the sky and split into shreds of thunder, as the storm burst over the city. The trees that skirted the fields in a thin fringe bent like tassels in the wind. Lightning flashed in swift, stabbing spasms, ripping the clouds apart, while the noise of thunder deafened Raphael with the weight of crackling, tumbling sound. Although the clouds hid the sun, the whole plain was lit by the shivering glare of lightning. Rain fell in slanting, driven sheets.

But the Sorcerer had not planned idly. At the first thunderbolt the whole city awoke to swarming activity. The skyscrapers suddenly bristled with metal spines. From where he stood, Raphael could make out armies of mechanicos swarming like black ants over the roofs, covering them with twisted metal nets, which caught the lightning and wove it into baskets of fire. Lightning crackled up and down the sides of the great buildings in great loops and whorls, while molten metal splashed through the air in white-hot showers as it fell hissing to the ground below.

The wind howled in angry gusts, sweeping the great skyscrapers clean of their mechanical men, uprooting trees, tearing down steel sign-boards like scraps of paper, while the river rose and swept foaming and yellow across the plain, bearing on its surface trees and stumps and broken branches.

The whole city will be swept away, thought Raphael, and the Sorcerer will surrender. I hope Cassie is safe. But he was frightened for all that and shivered where he stood. Would the river wash away the garden walls? So be it.

Then Raphael saw an army of mechanicos appear upon the banks of the river, followed by tractors towing strange engines. Plows and steam shovels seemed to rise out of the tortured earth in companies. To Raphael watching on the hill, ditches and canals formed as though dug by magic. Through the rain, the boy could see a huge wall rising slowly, pushing back the river from the city, which loomed up like a craggy island in a yellow sea.

The sound of mighty conflict came as the mechanicos labored. The roar of steam engines and beating hammers offset the throaty growl of the river. Fast though the water flooded down upon them, the city walls rose faster. Great ditches drained off the river. The mechanicos would save Mechana.

Raphael was appalled. The Sorcerer would win. He would never save Cassandra. The Sorcerer would destroy the living world. It was no use, he would go down to the plain and surrender, he would beg Mechanus for the life of his sister, he would exchange, give himself up. But what use would that be? The Sorcerer could now take them both. Raphael commanded the storm to cease. ‘I won’t give up! I won’t give up! I’ll make other plans.’ Raphael walked desperately up and down. ‘Gæa, Gæa,’ he muttered; ‘help me.’

Then an idea came to him. He would call upon the earthquake and the volcano, and so overturn the city.

Raphael raised his right hand fiercely and called once more upon Gæa.

Almost instantly plumes of smoke rose from the hills which circled the city of the Sorcerer and the whole earth shuddered. A light haze drifted lazily up from the city. Then with a sudden roar the top of the highest hill of all burst in a cloud of black smoke, and ashes began to fall silently, carried by the light breeze. They shrouded the sun, and twilight deepened into a thicker darkness. In the gloom, Raphael could see the mountain pouring out fire and smoke like a huge blast furnace.

Raphael looked about. All the animals had deserted him save the eagles, who clustered behind him, feathers drooping.

‘This ought to destroy the city,’ he said to Empyrean.

‘We shall see,’ answered the bird.

Everything was still. After the thunder, it seemed that the world was dead. No sound came from the city. The great machines were silent. In the half light ashes continued to fall swiftly like snow.

‘Look!’ suddenly screamed an eagle. Raphael looked.

A great wall of black lava was spreading from the hills toward the city. It rolled down from the mountain as molasses rolls over a colony of ants. It oozed up from the bowels of the earth like sap welling from a frightful gash. The boy heard for the first time the awful hiss of steam.

Slowly the lava struck the edge of the city and welled over it, wiping the great buildings from sight. Leveling, swallowing, drowning everything in its terrible path, it advanced toward the heart of the city.

As though at a signal a terrible confusion of noise broke out in Mechana. Bells tolled, whistles blew, searchlights groped blindly through the falling ash. There was a frenzy of activity. An earthquake rippled over the plain which opened in livid fissures. Raphael heard the dull crash of masonry as it toppled and fell.

‘The walls of the city!’ screamed the eagles exultantly. Raphael could hear the shriek of straining machinery as steam shovels, tractors, trains, and giant engines labored trying to restore order out of chaos. But steadily, silently the lava flowed on, the ashes fell.

[Illustration: THE WAR WAS OVER]

Raphael began to worry about Cassandra. ‘I can stop this volcano,’ he tried to reassure himself, ‘by raising my hand. But how long would the Sorcerer hold out? Until he and Cassandra were buried in the awful ruin of the city?’ The boy began to walk nervously up and down, up and down. The eagles huddled behind him.

A quarter of an hour passed. There was still no sign of surrender, though the noise of conflict in the city was dying away. Now and then a powerful explosion would shake the plain. And a strange smell filled the air. Raphael thought with sudden horror of the poison gas. Had the tanks exploded? Was this the end? The destruction of everything? Instead of saving Cassandra and the world, had he hurried on the fate which hung over them? At any rate, the Sorcerer would never rule. The boy stamped to and fro, muttering, ‘Surrender, surrender.’ He began to feel sick. Was he dizzy? He stopped and looked intently at the river. No, he wasn’t dizzy yet. Gas. Poison gas. How terrible!

A puff of wind sprang up, and drove the ashes in eddying clouds. Raphael suddenly saw above the city a great white balloon floating. How long had it been there? What was it doing? Then he knew. The Sorcerer had surrendered. It was the white flag of failure. The ashes blew back again and settled over the city. Was he too late? Had he seen in time? Raphael raised his hand and commanded the volcano to cease.

The war was over.

Immediately the volcano was still. The earth ceased to rumble, the ashes fell no more, and overhead the sun broke through the clouds in a sudden golden flame over the desolation below.

[Illustration]