A scream of fear and fury tore from the throats of the fighters.
A scream of fear and fury tore from the throats of the fighters.
A scream of fear and fury tore from the throats of the fighters.
Yorg was bellowing, "The gates! Fly! Save yourselves, if you can."
It was too late. The urn was turning in the hands of the androids.
The Black Priest cried in a strangely sweet voice for such a man, "Foolish rebels! For the last time you have dared defy the power of all-consuming Aava. This time you die! Swing the urn. Let the outlaws taste the green kiss of mighty Aava, that he may take them with him to the land of nevermore!"
The black orifice of the urn was becoming rounder as it tilted down. Deep in the rounded bowl, green fire shimmered.
Thor went forward, swinging his sword. It was not as good as an axe, but it would do. He flung it straight for the broad chest of the Black Priest, and followed it.
He saw the blade go deep into the man, saw him stagger backwards, bellowing his rage. Then Thor was reaching for the top rail of the balcony, leaping, his legs like springs beneath him.
Thor caught the top rail and used it as the pole vaulter uses his pole. His wrists turned and his hips twisted. He went up over the bar.
His feet hit the urn, with two hundred pounds of muscles and desperation behind it.
The urn tilted back.
The androids screamed as the green flame leaped outward. For one instant they hung there, as though in green mist. Their open mouths and bulging eyes were straining to escape what they tasted and saw. It was no use.
Thor knew the androids were dissolving even as he brought his left fist up to the Black Priest's jaw. The man went back, heels dragging on the balcony floor. He lay where he had fallen, motionless.
Thor went and stared into the urn. The green flame was dead, now, just glittering green stuff, like crystallized moss.
Yorg called, "Hurry, Thor Masterson. We have broken them but Aava will send more."
He swung from the balcony, a frown furrowing his forehead. There was something about that green flame—
Karola was waiting for him. She slipped her hand in his and tugged. "We mustn't stay here, Thor. You heard what Yorg said."
Thor stepped over fallen androids, with arrows and lances jutting from mouth and eye-sockets, with crushed and split-open skulls.
Thor stood in the arch of the gates and stared back at the balcony where the black urn lay tilted. That green stuff! His head was churning, trying to catch the elusive thought that dipped and darted out of reach of his mental hands. He shook his head.
"There's something about Aava—"
"Thor, please. There isn't time. Yorg says at any moment Aava will send androids to surround us. They will fetch other urns. We will die."
He snapped awake to the knowledge that he was walking with a frightened Karola behind the others, that ahead of him the women and the men were running. They had gone through the gates and were spreading out over the streets and alleys of the cyclopean city.
"Yorg! Tor Kan! Gordon!"
The Englishman heard him, came to him through the press, his longbow strung with a ready arrow.
"Jolly brush, what? Found I haven't lost my eye for a target. Got thirty of the blighters, myself."
Thor said, "We'll never escape Aava in his city. There's only one chance. We have to use the gatestone, and scatter. Can you get the others?"
Peter threw back his head and sent a shrill cry ululating across the streets. The men and women paused, looking back over their shoulders. Gordon waved an arm. Fearfully, the listeners began to return.
Thor lifted out the ruby, told the others to grasp it, as many as possible. He said, "Once we get into that other world, it will be easy for us to lose ourselves. Aava and his Black Priest do not know we possess a gatestone. They will search for us here in the city. While they hunt here, we will be far away."
Kor Tan rumbled, "Good. We will find our way as close as possible to our settlements. Then you, Thor Masterson, will find us with that ruby."
Hands stretched out. The ruby turned.
It did not take long. A ruby will turn swiftly in a steady hand, making many trips with people eager to be saved from the green blast of Aava. There were some who had not heard Peter Gordon call, and they stayed behind in the city. But the great majority of them were taken through the dimensional door by the red ruby, and set down on waving grasslands and bleak rocks.
With the red grasses brushing his ankles, Thor said, "We cannot search for the others. Aava will have his androids in the streets. Scatter now. Make your way toward the settlement. Gordon, will you come with us? I don't know my way to the settlement of yours."
"Glad to, Masterson."
Slag, Karola, Thor and the Englishman watched the others walk swiftly to the four corners of the horizon.
Gordon said, "We'd better take the most roundabout way I can think of. It will take us longer, but it will be safer. You have the gatestone. No one must get you."
They travelled swiftly and lightly for four days. Peter Gordon brought down juicy rabbits with his arrows for food, and taught Slag to use his weapon. With the wild man's aptitude for arms, the red dwarf was swift to learn.
On the morning of the fifth day, Thor Masterson went ahead of the others to scout. He strode up over massive rocks, to reach the summit of a small hill from which to look into the next valley.
When he reached the top, he halted in amazement.
A ship rested on black rock, tilted over. On the rotted white sail, there was the remnants of a dragon's head worked in red. From the prow, with its upreared serpent's neck and gaping jaws and forked tongue, to the stern where a broken rudder lay across the rock, it was every inch a Viking ship. A few shields still hung on the wooden sides. The mast, splintered, stood at a dangerous angle from the sloping deck.
Thor went up the rudder-stick and clambered over the side.
A skeleton lay near the helm, a vest of rusted-through chain-mail pooled on the white bones. A little in front of what had been a hand, lay a great axe.
Thor grinned, seeing that axe. He reached for the ivory haft, lifted and swung it around his head.
He staggered.
The pain was unbearable, there in his side. He reached down, felt in his pocket. His fingers closed on the ruby.
With a curse, he flung the jewel from him. His palm still stung from its icy coldness. The ruby hit the deck and bounded across the ancient planks. It rolled to a stop near a shield.
Thor stared at it.
The ruby was changing, right there in front of him. It pulsed and throbbed with the light inside it. Its red hues gave way to deep, royal purple; an angry purple.
Thor went nearer. He could see the beat and heave of the Green Flame, trapped in the crystallized alumina. It waxed and surged, as though battering against its jeweled walls.
"Aava!" he whispered.
"Of course, Aava. Did you think I put parts of my immortal self in these bits of stuff to pass the time? They are myself; I, them. It is my method of keeping watch on all my planet. I am with every android who carries a gatestone, if I so will."
Thor lifted the axe; he looked from it to the ruby, at the greenish fire flaring within it.
"No use," Aava thought-waved at him. "You cannot harm me, just as I cannot harm you—in this form. I have been searching for you. You invaded the Cave of Life with the Discoverer. You stole a gatestone. You raided my arsenal and woman-stockade. You assaulted the Black Priest. You overturned Aava-in-the-urn. A long list for one man."
There was silence. Above his head, Thor heard the rotting sail flap dismally in the slight wind. He shifted and a plank creaked underfoot.
Aava went on, "But I am a patient being, and kind. I bear no ill will. Become my man, you who call yourself—what is it—Thor? You will not regret your move."
Thor thought of Karola's golden hair and red mouth, of Peter Gordon and his bow, of Slag, of Kor Tan, of white Yorg. They and the others were depending upon him. They needed him and his gatestone to return them to their settlements and safety and peace.
He shook his head, gripping the war-axe tighter.
Aava chuckled, "Youarean idiot, aren't you? Oh, I can read your thoughts. It isn't hard for someone who's spent an untold eternity of eons living by one's self. You train yourself to do things.... You have loyalty in your heart. You love this woman with the yellow hair.
"But what is one woman? What are casual friends? I can give you more than that. I can give you anything you want.
"Permit me to demonstrate. Turn the gatestone."
The sail flapped louder in the breeze. A shaft of sunlight glinted on the edge of a shield fastened to the side of the longboat. Thor bit his tongue inside his mouth. It came home to him suddenly, with the force of a powerfully swung sledge, that he was trapped irrevocably.
The outlaws who fought Aava needed the gatestone to get to their settlements. He had the gatestone, but Aava was alive and awake, inside it. Whenever and wherever he used it, Aava would know. The settlements would no longer be secret. If he used the gatestone to transport the outlaws home, he would be leading an army to slay them!
Thor growled in his throat.
Aava laughed softly. He urged, "Turn the gatestone. Let me show you the wonders I could give a man like you, were he to be my friend. I want a friend, a strong friend. I do not trust my androids overly. They are only pseudo-life. Besides, there are too few of them to build an empire with. Lack of materials to make them has hampered me.
"Will you be my friend, Thor?"
Thor blinked. The insidiously sweet voice was working its will on him. He found himself thinking about those wonders and those marvels. Why not? What allegiance did he owe Gordon and the rest? Karola now, that was different. And Slag.
"You may have your woman, if you want her after I show you—my brand of woman!"
"It is a trick!" Thor rasped.
"What trick? What harm can I do you inside this jewel?"
That was true enough. If worst came to worst, he could always stuff the ruby into his pocket and get away. Aava couldn't see where he was going inside a dark pocket. He could see only when he was out in the open, such as he would be when Thor used the ruby as a gatestone.
"Use it, man."
Thor bent and held out his hand toward the red gem. It winked and flirted with him with its gorgeous purple hues. It was no longer cold with the iciness that stung. It was warm, with the heat of a human body. His fingers closed on it. The ruby throbbed softly, like a living heart.
"Now—turn me!"
Gone was the ship with its flapping sail and ancient planking. Gone was the sea of grass and the broken rocks. Thor almost dropped the ruby, staring.
A fey city stood not one hundred feet from him, set on the hard sands. It glowed with the creamy luminescence of alabaster where sunshafts struck its white walls and domes and needled spires. Crimson bands, interlaced with black, formed patterns of eerie loveliness against the whiteness. Inside its walls a chorus of sweet voices chanted with ensorcelled harmony.
The red doors in the wall swung open.
Chariots drawn by great black stallions raced toward him. Standing behind the hooped fronts were women of exquisite loveliness, their hair streaming behind them, whips held in red-nailed hands. They sang as they came, a song of sounds that stirred the senses.
"This is yours, Thor. All yours."
"It is unreal. It is too lovely to be real."
"It is real."
The lead chariot slithered on the sands, powdering Thor's ankles with grit. The black stallions reared, their hooves slashing at air.
The girl in the chariot caught Thor's eyes with hers, and laughed. She tossed the reins aside and stepped from the tailboard. Her red hair hung to her waist in back, and was powdered with silver dust. She held out white hands to Thor.
Thor reached out and grasped her hands. They felt real. And looking into her brown eyes, seeing all the beauty of her in gauze skirt and white linen cloak worked with a border of red and black interlacing, he almost felt his doubts vanish.
His fingers rubbed at her hand, twisting the flesh. That was real flesh. The girl seemed to catch his thought, for she came nearer and pressed herself to him.
"Kiss me, and know," she breathed.
Her mouth was warm and clinging. After a while she drew away and laughed, "Well?"
"You're real."
Aava whispered, "All yours, Thor. Go with her. Let her show you the city that is yours, that belongs to the friend of Aava."
He thought of Karola waiting with Slag and Peter Gordon. He felt the warm hand of the red-haired girl tug him. Her red mouth blew him a kiss. Her voice murmured cloyingly, "Come, Thor. Come to your city, and your throne." Karola seemed far away, forgotten.
Behind the black stallions, the chariot swept on toward the city. It rode smoothly, easily over the sun-baked sands. The red walls came nearer, nearer. Now he was under them, and inside the city.
Balconies on either side of the broad avenue were hung with banners and rich draperies. Men and women in red and yellow and purple garments laughed and tossed flowers at him, on the backs of the horses, into the street before him.
"Thor! Lord Thor!" they cried with delight in their voices, and awe and worship in their eyes.
The girl leaned into the hook of his arm. She said, "This is your city, Lord Thor. These are your people."
He looked into her brown eyes.
"And you?"
She put her mouth to his and left it there while the chariot thundered over roses and carnations and the pavement of the streets. Later she whispered, "Stalyl is yours, too." And Thor rode with chin held high, and pride in the set of his shoulders.
Before great doors of carved quartz the chariots came to a stop. Stalyl walked with Thor between the doors, her hip brushing his, her fingers wrapped around his fingers.
Alabaster pillars rose from an alabaster floor toward a red alabaster ceiling. Sunlight poured molten pools on the floor through tall windows. At the far end of the massive hall, on an oval dais of iridescent opal, stood a gigantic jewel, carved in the semblance of a throne.
"Lord Thor—your throne," said Stalyl softly.
He went and sat on the cold edge of the massy carnelian, fingering scarlet arms. In front of him, Stalyl clapped her hands, and young girls garbed in trousers of striped satin led giant men by chains around their necks. The men bore caskets in their hands.
Girls and men knelt before the throne. The caskets were placed in an arc before Thor.
Stalyl went to the first casket, threw back the cover.
Thor choked. It was filled to the brim with diamonds, diamonds that shimmered and glittered in the sunlight. Stepping down, he reached out a hand and dipped it into the jewels. He bore a handful, staring at them. Cut and polished with expert care, the diamonds were white fire against his palm.
Aava spoke, casting a thought at him from the depths of his pocket, "You like what I have prepared for my friend, Lord Thor?"
Thor drew out the ruby and held it free in his palm, staring from ruby to diamonds. "This is my price, eh, Aava? I sell my friends for these jewels?"
The purple hues of the ruby grew cloudy, as though with hurt. "Who spoke of selling your friends? I ask no traitor to come to me. I want the friendship of a true man."
Stalyl moved closer, touching his arm. Her red hair was a flaming halo around the white, red-lipped face. Her brown eyes burned at him. She was a living witch's spell of beauty and desire. Her nearness made Thor tremble.
He opened one hand, and diamonds tinkled on the mosaic floor. He reached out for the girl, seeing her lips beckon.
The ruby flared warmer, hot with pride. It dragged Thor back to reality, drumming alarms into his core. Danger, danger! With a wrench he tore his gaze from Stalyl; looked at the ruby, saw the green fire beating up with delight.
Thor tottered.
He knew, now. Somehow, in some strange manner—
Aava had triumphed!
III
The rotting sail flapped and bellied over his head. He stood again on the longboat deck. Out there, all around him, was the red grassland. Gone was the city of alabaster and the red witch, Stalyl. A myth. An hallucination. A mirage of temptation.
In their place—
Androids!
Thor drew his lips back from his teeth and flung the ruby from him. But, as it twisted in air, Aava cried, "A trick, Thor. But just a trick to test you. Pay no heed to the androids. They are here to lead us back to the city of the Urn. I tell you—" Thor caught his war-axe where it rested against the helm. He shook it at the ruby.
"You foul liar!" he rasped. "You hypnotized me. You showed me things that existed only in your mind. All right, I'll play your little game. But I'll show you things, too. And the things I show you will be real. Real, like death, Aava!
"You don't know what death is, do you? But you'll learn. I'll find a way. I'll pay you back—"
A lance sang in the air as it slid over his head. The androids were closer, hemming him in. They began to clamber up the sides of the ship.
Aava said swiftly, "You can make the dream come true, Thor! With you to help, I shall build a city of alabaster, make it lovely as the one I showed you.
"And Stalyl! We will create her, you and I. We will make her as lovely as the Stalyl I showed you. Far lovelier than any woman—"
"You lack materials! Otherwise you would have made more androids to fight the outlaws!"
An android hurdled the rail. Thor stepped forward, swung his axe. The keen edge bit through hair and skull.
Thor grunted, "This is the opening move, Aava. I'll find a gambit to beat you. I'll checkmate you yet."
The axe bit and dug at climbing androids, toppling them. Thor aimed always at the heads, for that was swift annihilation. Android after android dropped under the slashing impact of the double-edged Viking weapon. Thor used it with a full swing, letting the weight of his body add the impetus, learning that the perfect balance of the axe was manageable with a twist of the wrist. His hand on the ivory haft changed course and the edge drove home; it swerved, and the axe dipped under a sword to cut upwards through a jaw.
He spoke no more to Aava, though he felt the blazing green gaze fastened on him where he held the Viking deck. He used his wits for fighting.
After a while Thor dropped the tip of the axe to the deck and grinned at Aava, "You didn't send enough androids. Take a look!"
He held the ruby at arm's length above his head. The deck and sides of the ship were littered with sprawled bodies, with broken springs and gears spilling from crushed and severed heads.
Aava sighed, "It is hard, using androids. They are good servants, but they lack one thing. They lack initiative. They can't think."
Thor brought the ruby down, grinning mirthlessly into its depths. "How long have you lived, Aava?"
"I am immortal. I always was."
"You will die, some day. I will kill you, myself."
"Nothing can kill me, Thor."
"I will."
"Nothing can kill—"
Aava checked. Thor felt the cunning of the green fire, beating up through the crystal layers of the jewel. He whispered, "Nothing can kill—what?What are you, Aava? What is your secret?"
"You will never learn."
Thor shrugged and knelt. With his fingers he pried up a rotting board. There was a beam-joint beneath it. Thor placed the ruby in the crotch of the joint and stared down at the jewel, knowing the wild rage of Aava.
"I must leave you here—in darkness, Aava. I can't take you with me. If I did, you would see all I am going to do to whip you. You understand that?"
"Thor, be my friend!"
He shook his head, "I cannot. I do not trust you, Aava."
"The androids were not to fight you—"
"Yet they did."
Thor checked, peered closer. The purple hue of the ruby was fading. The gem was tenantless. Aava was gone.
Thor stood up and kicked the plank into place. He filled his lungs with crisp air. He knew what he must do. He had to learn all he could about Aava. If Gordon and the others could not help him—
There was always the Discoverer!
Thor dropped over the longboat side and went striding off into the grasslands.
It was night when he found the campfire, Karola came running, hearing his shout, her yellow hair streaming behind her. Thor caught her, held her close. He thought of Stalyl, and there was remorse and tenderness in his kiss.
She felt his mood. Head tilted, she looked at him and whispered, "What is it? Where did you get that axe? And your eyes—there is a little sorrow in them. Why, Thor?"
"I will tell you, darling. But I must tell the others, too. I want Gordon's advice."
Gordon wrung his hand and then held out some cooked meat on the point of a sword. Thor was famished. He sat with legs crossed before him and ate and ate. Karola sat close to him, watching him with her large violet eyes. Once in a while she touched the great war-axe, running the pink tips of her fingers along the fresh scratches on the steel.
Thor dug his greasy fingers into the sand, powdering them; then he rubbed them dry.
"I talked to Aava," he said slowly. "He came into the gatestone that I carried. He tempted me. I—almost yielded."
The others stared at him. Thor fastened his eyes on the heart of the fire, where the twigs and dried grasses glowed bright red. It was easier, looking there, to tell his tale, than to look into the eyes of his friends.
He concluded, "I do not have the gatestone now. I left it there, in the ship. Otherwise, we would have Aava with us, with every move we make. And Aava is what we are fighting. The odds are bad enough, without taking your enemy into your confidence."
Thor raised his eyes. He looked at Karola. He said, "I am sorry. Say that it's all right."
To his surprise, she laughed. Her violet eyes poked fun at him. She whispered, "No woman can compete with a dream. Stalyl was only that. At the same time, a dream cannot compete with a living woman. I am a living woman." She leaned over and kissed him gently, then sat back.
Peter Gordon said slowly, "What can we do now? It's a rotten situation. The others expect us. If we can't find a way to return them to the settlement—" He broke off, shaking his head.
Thor slid his hand up and down the stained ivory haft of the axe. He said, "The androids came into this dimension with the use of a gatestone. If we could find it, we could use that one. All the robots were killed, but I saw no gatestone."
"Perhaps the Black Priest used one to transmit them into this world. Then there wouldn't be any gatestone at all," said Gordon.
Thor opened his eyes, and blinked. He got to his feet, lifting his axe. "There's a chance. Aava will send someone to get the gatestone I hid in the ship. Then, if he should return to the gatestone—or we can get us one from an android—there might be a chance."
Peter Gordon drew his bow toward him and strung it. "Let's go," he said gruffly.
They went in the dark of the night, when the moons were below the horizon. Thor led, trotting swiftly with the long Indian stride an old Cherokee had taught him. Karola and Slag ran side by side. Peter Gordon, bow in hand and fingers touching the string of it, loped far behind, eyes continually moving.
Hour after hour they ran. Over rolling grassland, with only an occasional clump of rock formation to break the barren monotony of the dark landscape, they went at a deceptive pace.
Thor almost went by the ship. It was easy to lose trail here, where no trees ever grew. But the moons were sweeping up, and in their light a shield-boss winked to the left. It was enough. Thor swung about and when he grew nearer, he could discern the high rock and the curved hull of the longboat looming black against the sky.
He went up the rudder, without waiting for the others.
A sword flashed.
Thor went back on his heels, his shoulders hitting empty air. The axe in his right hand came up, almost of its own volition. Steel met steel, and sparks flared.
Malgrim loomed burly and huge, his beard bristling. The Black Priest chuckled, "What Aava did not do, I will do!" As he spoke, he was bringing his blade around in a mighty, whistling swing.
Thor was rammed against the low shield-wall that dug into the backs of his knees. There was no room to move, no space for footwork. Malgrim's flat blade caught him alongside the head. Thor went over the low shield-wall into roaring blackness.
How long he lay there, helpless, he did not know. But it was the scream tearing from Karola's throat that brought him staggering up against the musty old hull.
There was no time to find the rudder. He seized a trailing, rotted line he had not seen before and swarmed up it onto the deck.
Malgrim had Karola, afar off on the prow. She must have been the next one to reach the boat, had leaped lithely aboard—and now the Black Priest had her. His blade was high and starting to descend.
Thor groaned. No time! Karola screamed and clutched at Malgrim's gatestone, chained around his neck. Malgrim, sword still poised aloft, roared and beat at her tiny hand.
Then Thor saw the axe. With a sob he snatched it up. Once before, he had thrown a weapon at that monster. Now he hefted lovingly a thing so like the double-bitted axe of the North woods. Remembering, he swung the axe full circle—and threw.
Once again, the sword steadied for its downward slash. And then the axe thudded home in the base of Malgrim's skull—the spike between its blades biting deep. There was the sharptiingof breaking metal. A stricken look burst in the Black Priest's eyeballs as he lurched and staggered. He fell forward, left hand reaching for the gatestone that hung on his chest.
He was blurring even as Thor reached him.
Thor thrust his hand into the coldness and the utter darkness and caught the ruby. He wrenched. There was a queer sliding motion of the Priest's body, and the ruby came free. But the Black Priest was gone.
Karola swayed against Thor. They stood tightly together for a moment.
"Jolly nice going," said a voice.
Peter Gordon swung a leg over the shield-wall and came toward him. "We watched from the grass. You can play that axe like a Norse raider. Got his gatestone, eh?"
Thor handed it to him. "This means we split up. You go your way, to the settlements. I go a different route."
"Man, you don't know the way!"
"I'll find it."
Thor went and lifted a rotted plank. The red gatestone still lay in the crotch of the beams, winking at him. He took and put it in his pocket. "Now, if Aava hunts us, one of us will still get through the barriers."
Thor put an arm around Karola's waist and held her against him. He said, "This is a Viking longboat. It is from a past day in the history of my planet."
Peter Gordon murmured, "What queer things this space of Aava has snatched from the universe. I wouldn't be surprised to learn, when all our chips are in, that a great many disappearances on Earth are due to this place.
"Remember theCyclopsthat went off the face of the ocean in 1920? And do you recall theCopenhagen? And, back in 1755, a quay with a lot of people on it just puffed out of existence, disappearing all at once, in Lisbon, Portugal. There have been other disappearances from the Earth. None perhaps as sensational as those I mentioned.
"There's something wrong with this world we're in. It doesn't hew to a lot of natural laws we know."
Thor said, "There are no trees. Just rock and sand."
"Mean anything to you?"
"I'm not sure. There's something tugging and pulling in my mind, but it hasn't caught hold yet. And the weapons we use. Bows and swords and axes. There isn't a modern weapon in the lot."
Gordon grimaced. "Aava and his androids get the loot of the worlds, you know. They grab whatever drops on the planet. If he found guns or worse, he might horde them somewhere. The androids do not have the intelligence to use them. Besides, Aava doesn't trust his androids."
"Yes. Well, we do all right with what we have. But that thought in my mind—I want to follow it up. Karola!"
"Yes, Thor?"
Her violet eyes smiled into his. He kissed the tip of her nose. "You go with Peter and Slag."
"Oh, no, darling. I don't want to leave you. I—"
Thor squeezed her hand. "This is serious business, sweet stuff. I want to find the Discoverer. He has a method of transportation, Peter, that's a dilly. He calls it astral projection."
Gordon looked interested, icy blue eyes lighting. "I've read up on that, you know. It's some sort of yogi business. Certain Eastern fakirs claim to be able to do it. You know, he sits down and pays his brother a visit one hundred and some odd miles away. That sort of stuff.
"I've often thought that mental telepathy was a form of fumbling astral projection. The Duke University experiments proved amazingly accurate. And then there were the Sherman and Wilkins tests."
"I remember those. They worked quite well. I see what you're driving at. You think that the human mind is a sort of sending and receiving set, that it can communicate—"
"Communicate at first, then travel. That would explain your Discoverer."
"If he could teach me to travel that way," Thor mused, "we might really get somewhere against Aava."
Suddenly he bent and kissed Karola, and pushed her toward Gordon. "Take care of her, Peter. You too, Slag. I'll find you, somehow, sometime soon."
He dropped over the side of the longboat and waved an arm at the three black silhouettes that stared down at him. Then he turned and, as nearly as he could judge, went loping across the grasses in the direction in which he had last beheld the Discoverer.
Thor did not find the Discoverer for three days. And then it was the Discoverer who found him.
He came out of sleep one morning, with the mists all around him and the warm rock under him to stare at the great bulk of the sprawling being that lay and watched him. Thor sat and rubbed his eyes. He got to his feet.
"I have been hunting you, Thor Masterson. Astrally, that is. I found you two days ago, but we were far apart."
"And I—I hunted you. I want to learn about Aava. I—"
"I can help you. Some time after you left me, I began experimenting with my astral projection technique. I learned that, chronologically, I was not hampered in the least by normal bonds. Back on my home planet of Flormaseron, I was not hampered by the bonds of space, but the barriers of Time limited me. I could not go far into the past, nor far into the future. Here, I can do either."
"You can't call that witchcraft," Thor went on. "There is a science to it, but we just don't know the rules of that science. Just as, back in Roman days, atoms existed even if the Romans didn't know of them."
"There are some laws," said the Discoverer. "You have the beginning of them. You can launch your mind from your body and see what occurs elsewhere. Come, Thor. Lie down. I want to show you what happened here in the space of the green flame billions of years ago."
"Will that help me to conquer Aava? I want to visit him now, to learn what he does, what he plans—"
"I do not know whether it will help you conquer him, but it might help you understand him. And understanding is usually a prerequisite to any form of victory."
Thor lay back on the warm rock, moving his head slightly to find a more comfortable pillow on the hollowed rock. His arms he dropped to his sides, relaxing all through his big body. His chest rose and fell more slowly. His legs flattened against the stone. He closed his eyes and lay quiescent.
"Relax still more," whispered the Discoverer. "Sink deep, and deeper still. You must sever all bonds with your flesh. Sink—"
He was going down and around into a bottomless vortex of darkness. He fought to get down into the heart of that fancied whirlpool, down where its own power could drag him free. He fought, and struggled, fiercely.
He reached it. He hung in sunlighted air, looking at his prone body near the slumped mass of the Discoverer.
"Good. You did that all yourself, I think now you may do that without my help. But we waste time. Rise with me!"
An invisible tentacle touched him, flooded him with power. He rose high into the cloudless blue skies of Aava's planet, soaring sunward. Beneath him the red grasslands and grey rock spread out in vast splendor.
Soon now he was high enough to see the great globe that was the planet in all its entirety, slowly revolving. Out in space, in the vast distances between the suns, he floated bodiless. The planet receded, became a dot.
"Now we will go back, far in Time."
"How?"
"Think and will it. Your astral self, yourkaor twin-soul, is a creature of mind, not matter."
Thor thought, hanging there in black space. And, as he thought, with each bit of energy he threw into his will and into his brain, there was a change. The suns and the planets were moving. They sped like balls batted across a net by hundreds of players. They slid in ancient grooves, rotating and retreating, going back the paths of their orbits. A ball of raging fire looped at them. Thor paused in instinctive dismay; he sought to turn and flee, dreading the vast sun coming at him.
He sought to turn and flee.
He sought to turn and flee.
He sought to turn and flee.
"Move not. It can not harm you."
He was in the midst of a roaring red inferno, feeling nothing of its annihilating heat. An instant later it was gone, raging gustily down the tracks of Time.
Thor stared. There were fewer stars now, only a couple of hundred of parsecs away. This universe was retreating away from him.
"We must follow!"
"No need. They will return."
"But an expanding universe means that it will be retreating now, going back to ultimate beginnings—"
"Our universe—the universe of Earth and Flormaseron—is an expanding universe. But here, in Aava's worlds, there is no room for expansion. This is a finite universe, gigantic, but rimmed with some strange force that keeps it separate from our universe.
"Here the suns and planets rotate around each other, but at the same time they revolve inside this space. They traverse this great bubble thousands of times through the ages. Watch. You will see them return."
Thor hung there, in utter blackness. And then, far and faint, in the opposite direction from which the suns had gone, they came. At first they were pinpoints, then dots. They came nearer, great fiery orbs.
"Two hundred million years have passed, Thor Masterson. Let us drop down, toward the planet of Aava."
There was only one vast desert of sand facing them, as they hovered above the surface of the slowly revolving planet. Dunes a hundred miles high, whipped with savage and incessant winds. They saw sandstorms that were titanic in their fury.
"Sand," thought Thor. "Mile after mile of silicon dioxide."
"Drop down. Go through the sand."
Grayish granules all around him, bringing the sensation of suffocation until he grew used to it. The gray darkened and grew black as pitch.
"Rock," whispered the Discoverer. "Be cautious, now."
They slid from the blackness into the green light. This was a cave, seemingly endless. Embedded into walls and sides, glittering and sparkling, were bits of onyx, carnelian, opal and amethyst. Thor caught his breath at the iridescent wonder of the jewelled cavern.
"Far off, Thor, to the right. Look there."
Brilliant green fire, rising and falling. Alive, and waiting.
"Aava!"
"Careful. Think not so harshly. He will be aware of you. Come. It is time to go."
They went back, high into space.
Once again the planets and the stars left them alone, and again they came. But this time the planet Aava was molten, filled with shooting flames, burning with white, silvery flames.
Thor and the Discoverer went down into the bowels of the planet, seeking Aava. They found the green flame burning with brilliance in a sea of molten rocks. It leaped and danced, and gathered bits of matter around it, as though weaving a garment for itself.
"That is the oval in which we saw him encased," said Thor. "Pure quartz. When hot, it goes cherry-red."
"This is four hundred million years ago. He is truly eternal."
There was amusement in the Discoverer's mind as he said, "We will go back even further, back to the remotest beginnings. And even then, Aava was."
Eight times the universe came to them and receded. At last they stood in utter darkness, for a long time. There were no stars, no suns. There was emptiness.
"We are in the very dawn of all things. We are so far back that there is no Time, no Space. Only emptiness."
"If there is nothing, what are we here for?"
"Wait."
Faint rosy shafts of light streamed up from nothingness, incredible distances away. The light bathed them, sent tingles of electrical power throbbing through their beings. Although he was only brain, Thor felt that force. It was something from beyond, godlike.
Where there had been emptiness, was now matter. Here and there were stars.
"Is this creation?"
"Call it creation. Call it a life-force coming from somewhere that our animal minds can never fathom. Say the force gathered the floating electrons and bound them into balled suns. And in one of the suns, we will find what we seek."
They hunted through the weird wonders of this weird universe. And deep in the heart of a gigantic star that pulsed and threw its forces hundreds of thousands of miles high, they saw it.
A green blob, restlessly burning, circling within itself, like a fluid always in motion. Cradled and warmed by the heat of the star, given not only existence, but life itself by the rosy shafts of light, was Aava.
"Not eternal. But almost so."
"Master of this cancerous universe, this alien from known Time and known Space. Remember, the only thing that penetrated the force-shell around this space-cancer was the light, the rosy light."
"Aava is not absorbed by the sun."
"He is different."
"And being composed as we are composed would be gone in less than a fraction of a second, in that heat."
The Discoverer whispered, "Is that knowledge any help to you, Thor Masterson?"
"I don't know. The idea in the back of my head, that hammered away at me ever since I met Aava—I almost have it. It is there, if I can find a way to—"
Loneliness!
Hanging in this space, hundreds of millions of years from his body, Thor Masterson was alone.
"Discoverer! Where are you? Speak to me!"
There was empty silence.
Thor wondered. He was not afraid, for fright is a bodily thing, where the heart pumps faster and the skin grows white while the blood is sucked into the belly. This feeling was different.
He knew he was alone, that something had happened to the Discoverer. He called and received no answer.
Can I return? Thor asked himself. Can my mind span the countless eons between my body and my brain? He had learned all he could, out here in the beginnings of things. It was time to go back, now.
He took thought, calmly and dispassionately. There was no panic in him. He was a child with a new toy, turning it and examining it, feeling it bend to pressure, putting it to mouth to know its taste. Slowly he forced his brain into patterns, forming it with mental energy, twisting it into different shape.
Thor had to go forward in Time, swiftly. He must learn what had happened to the Discoverer, quest after Aava. He thought, and in thinking, found a new delight.
How long he hung there in the black voids, he never knew. But up from darkness came a white ball of flame that was Aava's planet, with its sun and attendant moons. They circled in darkness, weird and eerie in their iridescent brilliance.
I have succeeded, he reflected. That is the planet, bubbling with molten rock. Inside that sphere, Aava is fashioning a garment for himself, moulding it from crystal quartz. Somewhere on the other side of the universe, the sun that held him spewed him out, with the nucleus for his planet and its moons. I am speeding into the future.
Again and again Aava's planet and its sun and moons returned, to flee across the gulfs of space. Ten times they came and went; the last time, Thor knew he would have to wait no longer.
He dropped toward the planet as it circled its sun. He swept through heaviside and stratosphere. He plummeted into fluffy cloudbanks. Beneath him he could see red grasslands and bare rock. Across one rock was slumped the massive form of the Discoverer.
To one side of the Discoverer lay the body of Thor Masterson. The brain that was part of that body entered it.
There was coldness and a sense of numbness. He could not move a muscle.
Thor sent relays of orders along his nerves into every part of his body. A muscle twitched. He opened his eyes.
It took time, returning from such a journey; but at last Thor could move his arms. He rubbed his chest and loins, massaged his legs. Weakly, he stood up.
"Discoverer!"
It was a cry of anguish. The blob of jellied flesh lay seared and burned. Little blisters covered the massy body like globules of sweat. Where the blisters were greatest, the outer mass of the body was broken open into crevices, like the cracks in a human brain.
"Aava did this," whispered Thor. "They brought him in the urn, and he killed the Discoverer. And he spared me. That was a blunder."
It occurred to him that he was granted life because Aava thought he could use him. "He'll see. I'll show him what I can do."
Raging, he brought out the gatestone, staring at it. "You hear me, Aava? I'll get you yet. I'll find a way to beat you. There must be a way. There has to be a way!"
The ruby lay, warmly glowing. Aava was not inside its red crystalline substance. Thor closed his fist on the ruby and shook it back and forth. He culled oaths from lumber camp and battlefield. He swore them all.
He spent himself, there on the red grasslands. Dry-eyed, but grieving, he put out a hand and touched the blistered body. He whispered a farewell under his breath and turned his head to the north.
All night long Thor went at an easy lope across the plains. Just as dawn came up with red lances of light across the horizon, he stopped and turned the gatestone.
"If he wants me, he'll have to find me," he said. "I'll lead him a chase that—"
The rest choked off in water. He was in blue depths, in cold clear water that was so transparent he could see a shimmering forest of crimson coral and white sands far below him. Thor swam upward, aided by the natural buoyancy of his big body.
He treaded water a hundred yards from a shore where dead bodies lay scattered like leaves after a windstorm. There two androids lay broken in half; beyond them a fighter clad in reddish fur rotted. The rising sun glinted on a shattered spear in the hands of a Zarathzan, slid on to the blade of a sword buried in an android's skull.
He clambered, dripping, from the sea. Sorrowing, he walked among the bodies, recognizing many beside whom he had fought in the women's compound.
Something groaned, ahead of him. It was Morlon, hairy torso riddled with arrows, his black fur dyed red. Thor knelt and lifted his head to a knee.
"Aava came into the gatestone you gave Peter Gordon, Thor," muttered the dying man. "He saw where we went. We fled as swiftly as we could with the women, but Aava's androids crossed the Undying Sea in ships and caught us."
Thor's lips curled in anger. "Always Aava!"
"We fought a rear-guard fight, all the way. I fell here. I don't know what happened to the others. They went on—"
The giant Morlon stiffened suddenly, muscles ridging over legs and arms. His eyes rolled backwards.
Thor put him down on the sandy shore, gently.
He went on, along the path made clear by fallen bodies, by dropped weapons. Here was havoc wrought on man and android by sharp steel, by the honed edge of war-arrows and spears. Thor saw that there lay more androids than men.
Toward evening he heard them. Hoarse war-cries throbbed in the air. He crawled up over a lip of rock.
Before him lay the settlement, a low-walled city of kiosks and towers, their dun clay surfaces ornamented with ochre and vermilion. On its broad walls were archers and spearmen, patrolling during a lull in the battle. The low tents of the androids penned in the city, ringing it with pointed pennon-poles.
Thor gathered himself. He lifted his axe, swung it loosely to accustom his hand and arm to its feel. There was no way leading between those robot-tents, but Thor knew there was an invisible path leading to the settlement walls, a road he had to cleave with axe and feet.
He stood up, grim and gaunt against the bright sky.
Standing, he could see beyond the lip of rock, away to his right. Androids were tied to chains there, pulling. They were dragging great wagons filled with huge urns. Aava-in-the-urn! He was coming, to blast the walls with his titanic power!
Thor stifled a sob of anger and leaped forward. He ran as runs the deer, barely touching the passing ground with his feet, but flying swiftly. His axe was steady in his hand.
This was his one chance, when they were bringing Aava to the city. The androids would be occupied with their master. They would not be prepared for anyone trying to getinthe city.
If anyone noticed him, they paid him no heed. He was almost under the walls when three androids sprang from the shelter of a tent to meet him with naked swords.
Thor never stopped his rush. The axe lifted and swung, went back and swung up again. One android remained standing, coming in swiftly, throwing himself in a desperate lunge.
Thor sidestepped, pecked with the point of the axe right into the middle of the forehead. There was a sharp scream, and then the ponderous gates were opening before him. Thor dove through as spears whistled over his head.
Yorg grinned, slapping Thor on naked shoulder. "We thought you dead. Gordon and Kor Tan will be glad to see you."
"And Karola?"
Yorg laughed. "She pines, the yellow one. But come."
Along clay-brick streets they went, as Thor told of the urns they were bringing from the shore. He scowled and shook his white-furred head. "We cannot last when Aava sears holes in our walls. The androids will come, and then the Outlaws will be no more."
"If we had some wood on this accursed planet," growled Thor, "I might be able to rig a catapult."
He explained the function of the catapult to Yorg, who nodded, lips tightly drawn. In his eyes was the flicker of a new hope. "It might be. We gather what we can from the spacewrecks that the planet gathers. Other things we steal. We have some wood stored. And some cording. I will get to work at once."
Yorg led Thor to a great circular building with walls of glass, where sunlight fused across a tile floor, making the room alive with light. A girl with long yellow hair turned from a group at the end of the chamber. She screamed her delight.
"Thor! Peter, Slag, it's Thor!"
Their delight chased the worry from their eyes and faces for a few moments, as they shook his hand and pounded his shoulders. Peter Gordon said, "Jolly good to have you back, old man. But I'm afraid even having you here won't do any good. The androids have us surrounded. You say they are bringing Aava in the urns. Looks as though it's all over."
"Not yet," Thor growled, and told them of the Discoverer, and the astral voyage they had made.
Gordon wrinkled furrowed brows. "Can't see what good knowing that is, you know. It—"
"Think, man. I'm not too good at chemistry, but there are clues and hints all over this planet. Most of it is sand, rolling mile after mile. Even the red grasslands have sandy beds. And the rocks. There is almost as much rock as sand. What do you and the robots build your cities of? Clay! What jewels are embedded in the cave where Aava dwells? Opal, onyx, carnelian, jasper!
"Aava lives in a circle of pure quartz. Look!"
Thor put his hand in his pocket, drew out tiny green flecks of crystal, "I got this by scraping the urn where Aava appeared to his androids in the temple. It's glass! Something in Aava's nature was hardened by oxygen, and the sand in the substance of the urn turned into glass!
"When the Discoverer took me out into space and back in Time, when I saw the worlds of this space-realm created, one thing struck me. I watched Aava and his planet evolve from an empty void, saw the planet grow and take form.
"Gordon, I saw no fern forests, no great jungles of vegetation whose rotting and sinking into peat bogs gave us coal. Coal is carbon. And there were no petroleum wells, and petroleum is a compound of hydrocarbons."
Gordon rubbed his chin, frowning. "It's all jolly interesting, old man."
Thor waved a hand. "Can't you see? It all argues just one thing. No coal, no oil. No forms of carbon at all. Just quartz, sand, onyx, jasper, clay, carnelian, opal, rock—all forms of silicon.
"Aava is silicate life, where we are carbon life!"
The Englishman whistled low.
Thor went on, "Silicon is almost as ingenious as carbon. Both have a valence of six. Both unite with other substances to form various compounds. But, just as life with carbon structure cannot stand its own refuse—the carbon dioxide that we exhale when we breathe, so life with a silicate base cannot stand its own refuse—silicon dioxide—orsand!"
"Afraid I'm rather stupid, old man. Not following you very well."
"Human beings exhale carbon dioxide when they breathe, after taking the oxygen into their lungs to help release their energy. But if they breathed only that refuse, or carbon dioxide, they would soon die. The same with a being formed of silicon, such as Aava is. He forms sand—silicon dioxide—as his debris when he removes the oxygen from the air that is necessary to his life. Suppose we fed only sand to Aava?"
"You mean it would smother him?"
"You're thinking of human death. This is different. Why must all death be a matter of limp, lifeless clay? Why couldn't silicon beings die and become—"
"Of course. Sand and the heat generated by Aava's flame, plus the high silicate content in the flame itself—glass!"
"And glass is a form of death."
Gordon stared at him with wide blue eyes. "Man, man. You've solved it. But how can we get that sand onto Aava without getting killed ourselves? Even supposing we can get out of this trap?"
"You'll have to create a diversion. An attack on the urns. At night. I'll slip out and get to the Undying Sea. I'll swim underwater. I'll need a length of clay pipe to breathe through. And before I go, I want to make one more trip to the Mountains of Distortion. I remember there was a lot of sand over the cave of Aava. I want to check that. If true, one man might kill him. I'm going to try, anyhow."
Thor walked around the room, eyes gleaming brightly. He said, "Peter, we have a world here that we can make our own. We're locked inside a bubble of space, a cancerous growth that keeps this universe and our old universe apart. We are free to make whatever kind of place we want, in here. It's up to us to do it. We can't fail."
Outside the walls, they heard the deep-throated roar of the androids as the urns rolled forward. Gordon said simply, "If you succeed, it will have to be soon. Or there will be none left to profit by it!"
IV
Sunlight glinted on the flat surface of the Undying Sea. Near its sandy shore, an almost naked man clambered wet and dripping from its waters. In his right hand he carried a giant axe. In his left was a length of clay tubing. He paused and tossed the tube into the water, watched the ripples spread as it hit and sank.
Thor Masterson turned his face toward the black hulk of mountain far to the west. Around his loins was wrapped a cloth fitted with strips of toughened leather. Soft skin sandals protected his feet from the bite and burn of hot sands and rocks.
He ran smoothly, easily as the American Indian, at a lope that decimated distance. When sweat beaded his body, he found a pool and lay in its cool waters until fit to go on. Hammering away at him was the remembrance of the Outlaw settlement, of the androids storming the walls, of the urns rolling forward and tilting. Once in a while a stone from Yorg's crude catapults would overturn an urn, but the hits would be scarce.
While the attack went on, he lay on a smooth table and disassociated his astral self from his body. In spirit form he roamed the planet, seeking Aava. Deep in the bowels of the black mountain he had finally found him.
Thor dared not reveal his presence, or Aava would have lashed out with that titanic power that was destructive even to his projected self. Instead, he went down from the thin crust of rock over Aava, sinking through the golden granules of what had once been a great desert, to the fine crust of jewel-embedded rock that was the roof of Aava's cave.
Between jewels, hovering in rock and sand, Thor had looked down on the Green Flame.
Aava was verdant brilliance in the red quartz oval, his inner fires moving fluidly, pulsing, beating. He seemed to slumber, thoughts far away. Thor knew where his thoughts were: at the Outlaw settlement.
Thor looked around him, studying the thin crust of rock, the jewels, the over-hanging sands. Beneath the rock crust was a lip of stone bridge, five feet down from the rock roof. Thor had grinned, and slid back up through the sand and stone.
The rock cut into his feet as he climbed. Up sheer cliffsides, using fingers to clutch at stone projections, digging holes with his toes where no holds ought to be dug, hugging stone with his chest and belly, he went. By inch and by foot he climbed.
Night came while he stood on a yard-wide natural path. Thor grunted, eyeing it. Sleep was what he wanted, sleep was what his tired muscles craved. But he went on.
Into the darkness, where a misstep would send him plummeting to jagged rocks thousands of feet below, Thor crept. He crawled, vertically.
Above him he could see green light, faint tendrils of it.
That was the crevice, the entrance to the Cave of Aava.
And at the Outlaw settlement, Peter Gordon whistled arrows at the heads of the androids surging through the break in the walls that had just been blasted by the urns. But arrows and spears could not stay such as the androids. With sword and axe they hewed their path above the bleeding, dying corpses of the outlaws.
Karola shuddered beside him, handing him arrows. "Will Thor find Aava? Will he be in time to help us?"
"Jove, I hope so. But it looks bad, Karola. Very bad."
The girl grimaced, and closed white fingers on the hilt of a slim dagger. "They'll never take me back. Never!"
"Got the bounder!... No, I know. Aava hopes to breed a race of living beings with artificial insemination. But he needs women for that, and so far we've kept him from them—"
Below the balcony where they stood, they saw Slag and Yorg lead a charge with club and sword. The red dwarf howled his oaths as he slammed and battered at android skulls. Yorg, grunting and panting, used his blade like a scalpel.
"They're holding, Karola. The jolly blighters are driving them back."
"No, no. There—another blast by Aava-in-the-urn. Another group!"
The fresh androids drove into Slag and Yorg's flank, wedged in the screaming fighters, threw them back on themselves. A hairy red arm wielded a club like a blackjack. A white-furred arm cut and stabbed with a sword. But the androids came forward. They rolled over the outlaws.
Gordon said sadly, "We'd best fall back, Karola. We can't hold them any longer."
Here in the cave opening, Thor stood up and moved his axe, testing its heft. Green light danced and flared on the broad blades. Thor grinned wolfishly, and went forward.
Stepping carefully, using the shadows of the stalagmites to hide his giant frame, Thor went deeper into the cave, closer to the green flame that flared in the bowels of the mountain. It was warm here, for Aava was a thing of fire.
On the skin sandals that gave no sound, he stepped forward. He walked in the myriad light that the flame plucked from the gems and spread throughout his cave.
He could see the bridge of rock that lifted its stone arc high to the towering, shadowy roof of the cave. Up there, in the black shadows, he could stand on that bridge and be close to the roof—close enough to swing an axe.
Thor sped silently across the empty space between tumbled rock slabs. He leaped for the bridge and ran up its curving back.
Slag and Yorg bled from a score of wounds as they fought their fight by the settlement gate with club and sword. Side by side, two against an army, they dug bleeding feet into stone streets, and fought like madmen.
They piled androids in front and to the sides. They made a funereal mountain of wrecked, synthetic bodies.
Slag and Yorg would die here.
They knew it, yet they fought on. The others needed time to get to the circular tower, to fight their last stand against Aava. So the club and the sword stayed swinging, and the pile grew higher.
Now they could hear the trundling of the urn-wagons.
Yorg panted, "They come nearer, Slag."
"It will not be long. You are good fighter, Yorg."
The androids fell away. An urn was coming up. Behind it, androids massed with spears and swords, ready to attack when these madmen were wiped from their path.
Yorg rested on his blade and grinned at Slag. "Thor would attack that urn and tip it. Then the androids would get the force of it. It would kill a lot, facing that army."
Slag grunted and gripped his club.
The urn began to tilt toward the two bloody fighters. Yorg growled in his throat, and the red dwarf and the white ape leaped forward.
They struck the urn with their feet, at its apex. The clay vase shuddered and swung back. A green light reared up, blazing fury and annihilation.
Slag and York fell forward, over the lip of the urn as it dropped toward the androids.
A beam of green blight swept outward, over the massed androids. As a breath blows out the candleflame, so the green fire blew away the androids.
But Slag and York had fallen into that flame, unable to halt their forward impetus. The green flame touched them first, and destroyed them. They were dwarf and ape one moment, nothingness the next.
Watching from a slit in the tower wall, Karola rubbed tears from her wet cheeks with the back of her hand.
Far beneath him, the floor of the cave was dark and broken. There on the stone bridge, with the jewel-embossed roof so near, Thor was in a different world.
He stood now on the tip of the bridge's arc. The thin crust of roof was within reach of his axe. Thor looked down, full into the red quartz oval where green Aava slumbered, moving and radiating always.
"He's at the settlement. He's blasting away at something," Thor whispered.
He swung the axe in circles. He stood on tiptoes and the muscles of his naked back and thickly thewed arms bunched and bulged. With a sob of fury, Thor drove his axe at the crust of roof.
Sparks glinted. A flake of quartz fell away, dropped to the floor below and bounded. Echoes sprang up, dancing the length of the cave.
Thor attacked the roof with insane fury.
Flakes and chips of roof showered below, all along the cave-floor. Thor sobbed with the strain of his eerie battle. His lungs heaved. His arm rose and fell, rose and fell. Sparks grew to myriad thousands as the keen edge of the war-axe bit and dug in the stone.
Over the clatter and clang of steel and stone, rose an ominous thunder. Aava was being awakened from his slumbers. The green of the cave grew brighter, more freshly verdant. The red of the carnelians became purple; the purple of the amethysts, black.
Thor slashed and cut unceasingly.
Like a volcano gathering itself to spew its lava, Aava rumbled. With fire and with fury, he quested for the source of the falling rock.
A tongue of flame leaped up to stand for one long instant beside Thor. He grimaced and drove his axe without stay. The keen biting edges would not last long, now. They were almost done. A streak down the flat side of one axe-blade told him it would give, soon.
And the roof showed no sign of cracking!
The men and women in the tower watched the circle of urns gathering around them, tilting upwards. Hugging the walls and shadows of the buildings, the androids watched.
Arrows thudded down onto the androids attending the urns. But when two fell, four leaped from the darkness to take their places.
High in the tower, Peter Gordon fed his arrows to the attackers. The string of his bow was warm. His fingers were blistered, raw with continual friction. But his lips were tight, and his pale blue eyes were icy.
Karola bit her full red lower lip, shaking her long yellow hair from her eyes and wiping those same eyes surreptitiously with the palm when they grew moist.
The urns were facing the tower at last. Gordon dropped his bow, put out a hand, burying his fingers in the smooth flesh of Karola's nude shoulder.
"All over, all over. Jolly good fight while it lasted."
"Thor, Thor," Karola whimpered.
In another instant, the urns would thunder out their destructive fury. But the moment lingered into minutes, and still the urns were silent.
A wondering babble broke from the throats of the androids. Some of them bent and stared within the urns, where tiny green flames flickered. Those green flames should have annihilated the last of the outlaw settlement. Yet they did not.
Karola looked at Peter Gordon.
"Do you think—Thor—?"
Aava knew he was on the rock bridge now. Thor knew that Aava knew, and still he dug and battered his axe upward. He had a depression sculpted from the roof. A few more blows and—
The axe dug in. Thor pulled it loose.
He heard Aava, then. A blast of titanic heat, of power unimaginable, came roaring up at him.
Thor leaped outward, away from the bridge.
For a moment he hung a hundred feet above the jagged floor of the cave. In that instant, Aava hurled himself upward, filling the cave with radiance and intolerable heat.
Thor threw wide his arms, closed them on a stalactite dropping its thin rock formation from the roof. His legs spraddled the drooping stone, hugging it.
Aava raged, biting and burning at the stone bridge, seeking his quarry. Sullenly, he dropped back within the quartz oval.
Thor almost missed the bridge, leaping back for it. His hands scrabbled at the loose shale, sliding and slipping, before his fingers tightened on a rough projection.