The Face in the Abyss by Abraham Merritt (ebook e reader .TXT) 📖

precious jewels in the enchanted vineyards of the Paradise of El-Shiraz, like flowers in a garden of the King of the Jinns, grew clustered gems!

Great crystals, cabochon and edged, globular and angled, alive under that jubilant light with the very soul of fire that is the lure of jewels. Rubies that glowed with every rubrous tint from that clear scarlet that is sunlight streaming through the finger tips of delicate maids to deepest sullen red of bruised hearts; sapphires that shone with blues as rare as that beneath the bluebird’s wings and blue as deep as those which darken beneath the creamy crest of the Gulf Stream’s crisping waves; huge emeralds that gleamed now with the peacock verdancies of tropic shallows, and now were green as the depths of a jungle glade; diamonds that glittered with irised fires or shot forth showers of rainbowed rays; great burning opals; gems burning with amethystine’ flames; unknown jewels whose unfamiliar beauty checked the heart with wonder.

But it was not the clustered jewels within this chamber of radiance that had released the grip of his hand upon the automatic and had turned him into stone.

It was—the Face!

From where he stood a flight of Cyclopean steps ran down into the heart of the cavern. At their left was the semi-globe of gemmed and glittering rock. At their right was—space. An abyss, whose other side he could not see, but which fell sheer away from the stairway in bottomless depth upon depth.

The Face looked at him from the far side of the cavern. Bodiless, its chin rested upon the floor. Colossal, its eyes of pale blue crystals were level with his. It was carved out of the same black stone as the walls, but within it was no faintest sparkle of the darting luminescences.

It was man’s face and the face of a fallen angel’s in one;

Luciferean; imperious; ruthless—and beautiful. Upon its broad brows power was enthroned—power which could have been godlike in beneficence, had it so willed, but which had chosen instead the lot of Satan.

. Whoever the master sculptor, he had made of it the ultimate symbol of man’s age-old, remorseless lust for power. In the Face this lust was concentrate, given body and form, made tangible. And within himself, answering it, Graydon felt this lust stir and awaken, grow swiftly stronger, rise steadily like a wave, lapping and threatening to submerge the normal barriers that had restrained it.

Something deep within him fought against this evil rising tide; fought to hold him back from the summoning Face; fought to drag his eyes from the pallid blue ones.

And now he saw that all the darting rays, all the flashing atoms, were focused full upon the Face, and that over its brow was a wide circlet of gold. From the circlet globules of gold dripped, like golden sweat. They crept sluggishly down its cheeks. From its eyes crept other golden drops, like tears. And out of each corner of the merciless mouth the golden globules dribbled like spittle. Golden sweat, golden tears and golden slaver crawled and joined a rivulet of gold that oozed from behind the Face, thence to the verge of the abyss, and over its lip into the depths.

“Look into my eyes! Look into my eyes!”

It seemed to him that the Face had spoken—that it could not be disobeyed. He did obey. Up leaped the wave, breaking all bonds.

Earth and the dominion of earth, that was what the eyes of the Face were promising him! And from them and into him streamed a flaming ecstasy, a shouting recklessness, a jubilant sense of freedom from every law.

He tensed himself to leap down the steps, straight to that gigantic mask of black rock that sweated, wept and slavered gold; to take from it what it offered; to pay it whatever it should demand of him in return—

A hand gripped his shoulder, a voice was in his ears— Soames’ voice:

“Takin’ a hell of a long while, ain’t you—”

Then a high-pitched, hysterical shouting:’

“Bill—Dane’—come quick! Look at this! Christ—”

He was hurled down to the stone; sent rolling. Rushing feet trampled him, kicked him, knocked the breath from him. Gasping, he raised himself on hands and knees, struggled to rise.

Abruptly, the shouts and babble of the three were silenced. Ah… he knew why that was… they were looking into the eyes of the Face… it was promising them what it had promised him…

He made a heart-straining effort. He was up! Swaying, sick, he glared into the cavern. Racing down the-steps, halfway down them, were gaunt Soames, giant Starrett, little Dancret.

By God—they couldn’t get away with that! Earth and the dominion of earth… they were his own for the taking … the Face had promised them to him first…

He leaped after the three—

Something like the wing of an immense bird struck him across the breast. The blow threw him back, and down again upon hands and knees. Sobbing, he regained his feet, stood swaying, then staggered to the steps… the eyes of the Face… the eyes… they would give him strength… they would—

Stretched out upon the radiant air between him and the Face, her misty length half-coiled, was the phantom shape of that being, part woman and part serpent, whose image Suarra bore upon her bracelet—that being she had named the Snake Mother.

At one and the same time real and unreal, she floated there. The diamonded atoms swirled round and through her. He saw her—and still plainly through her he could see the Face. Her purple eyes were intent upon his.

The Snake Mother… who had promised Suarra as woman to woman that she would help him… if he had that within him which could avail itself of her help.

Suarra!

With that memory, his rage and the poison that had poured into him from the eyes of the Face vanished. In their place flowed shame, contrition, a vast thankfulness.

He looked fearlessly into the eyes of the Face. They were but pale blue crystals. The face itself was nothing but carved rock. Its spell upon him was broken!

He looked down the stairway. Soames, Starrett and Dancret were at its end. They were still running—running straight toward the Face. In the crystalline luminosity they stood out like moving figures cut from black cardboard. They were flattened by it—three outlines, sharp as silhouettes cut from black paper. Lank and gaunt silhouette, giant silhouette and little one, they ran side by side. And now they were at the point of the huge chin. He watched them pause there for an instant, striking at each other, each trying to push the others away. Then as one, and as though answering some summons irresistible, they began to climb up the cliffed chin—climbing up to the cold blue eyes and to what those eyes promised.

And now they were in the full focus of the driving rays, the storm center of the luminous atoms. For an instant they stood out, still like three men cut from cardboard, a little darker than the black stone.

They grayed, their outlines grew misty. They ceased their climbing. They writhed—

They faded out!

Where they had been, hovered three wisps of stained cloud. The wisps dissolved.

In their place were three great drops of gold.

Sluggishly the three globules began to roll down the Face. They drew together. They became one. This dribbled slowly down to the crawling golden stream; was merged with it; was carried to the lip of the abyss—

Over into the gulf.

From high over that gulf came a burst of the elfin horns, a rush of unseen wings. And now, in the strange light of that cavern, Graydon saw them. Their bodies were serpents, silver scaled. They were winged. They dipped and drifted and eddied before the Face on snowy pinions, like those of ghostly birds of paradise.

Large and small, some the size of the great python, some no longer than the asp, they whirled and coiled and spun through the sparkling air, trumpeting triumphantly,

calling to each other with their voices like elfin homs, fencing joyously with each other with bills that were like thin, straight swords.

Winged serpents, paradise-plumed, whose bills were sharp rapiers. Winged serpents sending forth their paeans of fairy trumpets while that crawling stream of which Soames—Dancret—Starrett—were now a part dripped, dripped, slowly, so slowly, down into the abyss.

Graydon dropped upon the step, sick in every nerve and fiber of his being. He crept past the edge of the rock curtain, out of the brilliancy of the diamonded light, out of the sight of the Face and out of hearing of the trumpetclamor of the flying serpents. ^

He saw Suarra, running to him.

And consciousness left him.

CHAPTER VII. The Guarded Frontier

THE DIM GREENNESS of a forest glade shadowed Graydon when he opened his eyes. He was lying upon his blanket, and close beside him was his burro, placidly nibbling the grass.

Some one stirred in the shadow and came toward him. It was an Indian, but Graydon had never seen an Indian quite like him. His features were clean cut and delicate, his skin was more olive than brown. He wore a corselet and kilt of quilted blue silk. There was a thin circlet of gold around his forehead, upon his back a long bow and quiver of arrows, and in his hand a spear of black metal. He held out a silken-wrapped packet.

Graydon opened the packet. Within was Suarra’s bracelet of the Snake Mother and a caraquenque feather, its shaft cunningly inlaid with gold.

“Where is she who sent me these?” he asked. The Indian smiled, shook his head, and laid two fingers over his lips. Graydon understood—upon the messenger had been laid the command of silence. He restored the feather to its covering, and thrust it into the pocket over his heart. The bracelet he slipped with some difficulty over his own wrist.

The Indian pointed to the sky, then to the trees at his left. Graydon knew that he was telling him they must be going. He nodded and took the lead-strap of the burro.

For an hour they threaded the forest—trailless so far as he could see. They passed out of it into a narrow valley between high hills. These cut off all view of the circular mountain, even had he known in what direction to look for it. The sun was half down the western sky. They reached, at dusk, a level stretch of rock through which a

little stream cut a wandering channel. Here, the Indian indicated by signs that they would pass the night.

Graydon hobbled the burro where it could graze, made a fire and began to prepare a sketchy meal from his dwindling stores. The Indian had disappeared. Shortly he returned with a couple of trout. Graydon cooked them.

Night fell and with it the Andean cold. Graydon rolled himself up in his blanket, closed his eyes, and began to reconstruct, as far as possible, every step of the afternoon’s journey; impressing upon his memory each landmark he had carefully noted after they had emerged from the trees. Soon these blended into a phantasmagoria of jeweled caverns, great faces of stone, dancing old men, in motley—then Suarra floated among these phantoms, banishing them. And then she, too, vanished.

It was long after noon when, having passed through another belt of trees, the Indian halted at the edge of a. plateau stretching for unknown distances west and east. He pushed aside some bushes and pointed down. Graydon, following the pointing finger, saw a faint trail a hundred feet beneath him—some animal’s runway, he thought, not marked out by human feet He looked at the Indian, who nodded, pointed to the burro and to Graydon, then down to the trail and eastward. Pointed next to himself, and back the way