red staff pointed to the three bodies. Instantly, as at some command, the clamor of the horns lifted from around them, swirled high in air—and stilled. At the top of the hillock the white llama was struggling to its feet. A band of crimson ran across one silvery flank, the mark of Starrett’s bullet. The llama limped down the mound.
As it passed Soames it nosed him. The New Englander’s head lifted. He tried to arise, and fell back. The llama nosed him again. Soames squirmed up on hands and knees; eyes fixed upon the golden panniers, he began to crawl after the beast.
The white llama walked slowly, stiffly. It came to Starrett’s body and touched him as it had Soames. And Starrett’s massive head lifted and he tried to rise, and failing even as had Soames, began like him to crawl behind the animal.
The white llama paused beside Dancret. He stirred, and lurched, and followed it on knees and hands.
Over the moon-soaked sands, back to the camp they trailed—the limping beast with the blood dripping from its wounded side. Behind it the three crawling men, their eyes fixed upon the golden-withed panniers, their mouths gasping, like fish being drawn up to shore.
The llama reached the camp fire and passed on. The crawling men reached the fire and were passing in the llama’s wake. The figure in motley lowered his rod.
The three men ceased their crawling. They collapsed beside the embers as though all life had abruptly been withdrawn.
The strange paralysis lifted from Graydon as swiftly as it had come upon him; his muscles relaxed, and power of movement returned. Suarra ran by him to the llama’s side, caressed it, strove to stanch its blood.
He bent over the three. They were breathing stertorously, eyes half closed and turned upward so that only the whites were visible. Their shirts had been ripped to ribbons. And on their faces, their breasts and their backs were dozens of small punctures, the edges clean cut as though by sharp steel punches. Some were bleeding, but on most of them the blood had already dried.
He studied them, puzzled. The wounds were bad enough, of course, yet it did not seem to him that they accounted for the condition of the three. Certainly they had not lost enough blood to cause unconsciousness; no arteries had been touched, nor any of the large veins.
He took a bucket and drew water from the brook. Returning, he saw that Suarra had gotten the llama upon its feet again, and over to her tent. He stopped, loosed the golden panniers, and probed the wound. The bullet had plowed almost through the upper left flank, but without touching the bone. He extracted the lead and bathed and dressed the injury with strips of silken stuff the girl handed him. He did it all silently, nor did she speak.
He drew more water from the brook, and went back to his own camp. He saw that the hooded figure had joined the girl. He felt its hidden eyes upon him as he passed. He spread blankets, and pulled Soames, Dancret and Starrett up on them. They had passed out of the stupor, and seemed to be sleeping naturally. He washed the blood from their faces and bodies, and dabbed iodine into the deepest of the peck-like punctures. They showed no sign of awakening under his handling.
Graydon covered them with blankets, walked away from the fire, and threw himself down on the white sands. Foreboding rested heavily on him, a sense of doom. And as he sat there, fighting against the depression sapping his courage, he heard light footsteps, and Suarra sank beside him. His hand dropped upon hers, covering it. She leaned toward him, her shoulder touched him, her cloudy hair caressed his cheek.
“It is the last night, Graydon,” she whispered, tremulously. “The last night! And so—I may talk with you for awhile.”
He answered nothing to that, only looked at her and smiled. Correctly she interpreted that smile.
“Ah, but it is, Graydon,” she said. “I have promised. I told you that I would save you if I could. I went to the Mother, and asked her to help you. She laughed—at first. But when she saw how serious it was with me, she was gentle. And at last she promised me, as woman to woman—for after all the Mother is woman—she promised me if there was that within you which would respond to her, she would help you when you stood before the Face and—”
“The Face, Suarra?” he interrupted her.
“The Face in the Abyss!” she said, and shivered. “I can tell you nothing more of it. You—must stand before it. You—and those three. And, oh Graydon—you must not let it conquer you . . . you must not. . . .”
Her hand drew from beneath his, clenched it tight. He drew her close to him. For a moment she rested against his breast.
“The Mother promised,” she said, “and then I knew hope. But she made this condition, Graydon—if by her help you escape the Face, then you must straight-way go from this Forbidden Land, nor speak of it to any beyond its borders—to no one, no matter how near or dear. I made that promise for you, Graydon. And so”—she faltered—“and so—it is the last night.”
In his heart was stubborn denial of that. But he did not speak, and after a little silence she said, wistfully—
“Is there any maid who loves you—or whom you love—in your own land, Graydon?”
“There is none, Suarra,” he answered.
“I believe you,” she said, simply, “and I would go away with you—if I could. But I cannot. The Mother loves and trusts me. And I love her—greatly. I could not leave her even for—”
Suddenly she wrenched her hand from his, clenched it and struck it against her breast.
“I am weary of Yu-Atlanchi! Yes, weary of its ancient wisdom and its deathless people! I would go into the new world where there are babes, and many of them, and the laughter of children, and life streams swiftly, passionately—even though it is through the opened Door of Death that it flows at last. For in Yu-Atlanchi not only the Door of Death but the Door of Life is closed. And there are few babes, and of the laughter of children—none.”
He caught the beating hand and soothed her.
“Suarra,” he said, “I walk in darkness, and your words give me little light. Tell me—who are your people?”
“The ancient people,” she told him. “The most ancient. Ages upon ages ago they came here from the south where they had dwelt for other ages still. One day the earth rocked and swung. It was then that the great cold fell, and the darkness and the icy tempests. And many of my people died. Then those who remained journeyed north in their ships, bearing with them the remnant of the Serpent-people who had taught them the most of their wisdom. And the Mother is the last of that people.
“They came to rest here. At that time the sea was close and the mountains had not yet been born. They found hordes of the Xinli occupying this land. They were larger, far larger, than now. My people destroyed most of them, and bred down and tamed those they spared, to their own uses. And here for another age they dwelt as they had in the south, where their cities were now beneath mountains of ice.
“Then there were earth shakings, and the mountains began to lift. Their wisdom was not strong enough to keep the mountains from being born, but they could control their growth around their city. Slowly, steadily, through another age the mountains uprose. Until at last they girdled Yu-Atlanchi like a vast wall—a wall which could not be scaled. Nor did my people care; indeed, it gladdened them. Because by then the Lords and the Mother had closed the Gate of Death. And my people cared no more to go into the outer world. And so they have dwelt—for other ages
