“Do devils of the Dark then still exist?” asked Cho.
“The skin and long fangs of one were delivered in a packet of tribute hides the month before the Fire Snake sailed. Sometimes the youth of the courtyards hunt them. I have a dagger with the tooth of a devil forming
its hilt. But that devil was slain in my father’s youth.=, They take to the heights and are solitary things, coming out only when they have a bad year and famine drives them to new hunting country.”
“So. Yet it is told in Mu that all devils were slain; long ago, being now only in stories to frighten children. , The devils, Ray, are like-in part-to man, shaggy with heavy hair, yet walking erect. Their fangs are long and curved thus-the upper ones, that is. And always they live in high, wild places. They hunt in the darkness of the middle right. And they leave great,: strange tracks in the mountain snow-”
“Snowmen,” memory supplied Ray. ,”
“You had them in your time?” the Lady Ayna questioned eagerly:
“Another legend-still in the country that you call Uighur, which in my day contains the highest mountain lands of the world. Your devils have been reported, their tracks seen, but none have been killed or captured-”
“How odd that this is so,” the girl said slowly. “The` devils known in your time, yet a land such as Mu forgot. how much else remains?”
“Say rather,” Cho broke in, “why do some linger` while others are forgot? Devils of the Dark-Atlantis—why these?”
The day wore on, cloudless, full of light. It was warmer, so they put aside their cloaks. And now there were birds above the waves, which were more of a blue-green. Trails of dark weed laced the surface of the sea, and once a fish broke water, rearing its head as if, to gaze intelligently at the passing Wind Ruler.
“Dolphin!”
The Lady Ayna followed Ray’s pointing finger. “Sea dancer,” she corrected. “So these, too, you know, Lord.. Ray’?”
“In my time they have growing importance. We have= learned that they are highly intelligent. We are seeking to communicate with them.” She looked from the American to the dolphin and back again.
“It is known that the sea dancers are friendly, that they have been known to aid swimmers in difficulty, and they are under the protection of the Sun. No man dares raise a hand to hurt them. But they are of the sea, and while we go upon its surface in ships, swim in it a little, it is a world closed to us.”
“No, you wouldn’t have subs”-Ray nodded-“or scuba masks or the new water lungs-”
Cho was listening intently. “Is it then that your people have found a way to make the depths of the sea open to man? How?”
Ray described submarine activity as best he could. How men in his era not only traveled in the depths, but how, equipped with water-breathers, they could roam at will, more nearly part of the sea than man had been since the first amphibian had crawled from the waves to begin land-nourished life.
“But—how wonderful!” cried the Lady Ayna. “Ah, to travel in the sea! Truly you live in a time of wonders, a time when man must have the whole of the world open to him! We have been taught that once war is conquered, this would be so-”
“War is still with us,” Ray replied. “Many of the things we have learned have come because of the necessity of defense or attack in war. No, my age is far from golden-”
“Golden?” She repeated: inquiringly.
“Mankind looks back to a golden age when there was no war and all was peace and happiness-”
Cho smiled wryly. “When was that age then, brother? In our time, which is a legend to you? No-you see for yourself how much peace abides with us. In the days of Hyperborea? We have our own legends, and those speak only of death and disaster struck from the spark of man’s greed and lust. If there was a golden age-where would one seek it? In the past–no! We have been taught to look to the future.”
“Which to my time is dark,” Ray replied.
“Lord-the signal!”
They turned to look southwest at the foreman’s call. f Against an afternoon sky a white trail mounted up ands up, making a line across the blue.
“The signal tower of the outer gates,” Cho said.
“It would seem that we have won our race after all,”, the Lady Ayna commented.
Ray looked astern. The raider was there, but only: just visible, as if it had stopped.
It was that, Ray thought, which had kept them` uneasy, the waiting for some last attack from that’ sinister black blot.
The Lady Ayna drew a deep breath. “The air is cleaner for its going. Look ahead now, not behind. The future still awaits us.”
There was a bustle about them. The metal walls that had shielded the waist dropped back. The machines of war were being covered by their crews. Ahead, on a narrow tongue of land pushing into the sea and ending in a fringe of rock teeth, was a tall tower.
Cho was giving orders and moving about the deck.
“We will go straight in,” he said when he returned. “h shall not stop at Manoa but head directly for then canals. See, they acknowledge us with banner salute.”:
There were puffs of white from the tower’s head;: then a flag dipped and rose again. The wind pulled it straight for an instant, and Ray saw its insignia, EL. rising rayed sun on a green field.
They rounded the reefs, altered course to the west, and shortly saw another cape to the south. On this stood a squat, earth-hugging building that had the, look of a fort. Cho smiled. Some of the strain had gone. from his face.
“We are in now. Let us eat and drink in comfort.”
It was still day when they returned to the upper deck. Cho strode up and down restlessly, paying little”
attention to the others.
“Now we no longer sail alone,” pointed out the Lady Ayna. “That is a grain carrier and, beyond, a merchant ship from the motherland, and next is a ship of the northern fleet.
“Some of these have been recalled to lie idle here until the North Sea is safe again. Others do business in these waters. But the Inner Sea is always safe-the storms of the north and the whims of the southern gales are unknown here.”
“Why are those turning?” Ray asked. Two ships ahead were altering course, opening a lane for the Wind Ruler.
“Because we fly that.” Cho came up to them. He pointed to their own flag, its full sun proudly emblazoned on a crimson field. “They know we bear urgent news, and so the word has been passed to give us open water.”
When dark came, a light was trained upon that banner, continuing to proclaim their need for swift passage. And it was accorded them the next day also, even though they were in the crowded shipping lanes about Manoa’s harbor. This capital of an imperial province Ray saw only from the sea. But its soaring white towers and pyramids gave the impression of a long-established civilization.
He discovered during these days that the tongue of the motherland was becoming his. At least he could understand easily, though when he replied, his own tongue still twisted over its clicking consonants and slurred vowels. He practiced all he could, while Cho also gave him a grounding in the Atlantean language.
They met with their first delay at the canals to the western sea. Ray could detect no resemblance here to the continent of his own time. This backbone of southern America must ruse in the future to form the sharp spine of the Andes, but now the only heights visible from the deck of the Wind Ruler were gentle rolling hills behind the canal port city.
There was confusion on board, a coming and going of officials. But finally they were passed through, and the keel of the Wind Ruler slid into the waves of another sea.
“Thanks to the Sun, we are free at last!” Cho returned
from seeing the last port officer overboard. “After what has happened, I do not like delays, nor do I find port gossip of high interest.”
“The Re Mu-” began the Lady Ayna.
“Yes, to him we must give truth, not words to hide it, lest alarms spread. And what truth we have is not pleasant. The Re Mu-perhaps he will see ways in which we might have done better. His is the wisdom we cannot aspire to. And this was my first command-”
“Ah, but you return with your ship,” broke in the Lady Ayna.
“Which I might not have done had fortune frowned upon me as she did upon you. There is no disgrace, my lady, in failure if one has acted to the best of one’s ability-and tries again.”