The priest struck him. “Ba-Al is not blown as a feather on the breeze. The Loving One will make you forget all but itself-and soon!”
Uranos spat blood from a cut lip. “Look about you. So gather now the spirits of the murdered dead! Think you they shall not guide their avengers, call through your streets for an end to Ba-Al’s rule? I say to you, the Five Walled City shall vanish from the earth, and even its name will be lost to the memory of man. Ba-Al must seek again the pit from which he crawled, and those who serve him will be left to face the light they fear more than any sword. That which you have called up shall be master, not servant, before it is also sent once more into its own place!”
He spoke not as one voicing threats but with such assurance that he might have been a prophet who believed implicitly in his vision of a future shortly to come.
Again the priest raised his hand to strike, but he did not complete that blow. The roaring had faded somewhat, and now they heard a pounding, as if someone ran through the halls. A priest, who wore a brazen corselet over his robe and carried a helm within the crook of his arm, came hastily from behind a row of pillars.
“The Murians-” he panted. “They have sunk ships across the mouth of the harbor after loosing two fire galleys to ram in among the fleet. They landed other forces to the north, and the herdsmen of the plains have revolted to join them. Magos bids you bring these carrion forth to the pyramid above the walls that he may show them what power we can send out to eat them up!”
This-this was what he had been sent to do, said the will within Ray. This was a part of the battle in which he would be the weapon.
The first sharp consciousness of that ebbed as the -priests hurried him on with Uranos. Men who were
dressed half as priests and half as mailed warriors closed about them and brought them out of the temple.
They could hear the roar better, see the glare of fire beyond the walls and canals, spreading from the docks. There was a tenseness to be felt in the city, its streets crowded with soldiers so that the party from the temple. was slowed. Shock was a part of it, Ray sensed. The Atlanteans had not expected this blow-not so soon-and not here. How had the Murian forces managed to move so fast and with such secrecy that they appeared to have caught their enemies unaware-bottled the Atlanteans in their city?
It must be past dawn, but the sky was murky with darkening clouds. And to those one of their guard called their attention.
“See, your Sun is veiled. So does Ba-Al draw his protective curtains over us this day!”
Uranos was jostled against Ray, and the American noticed the other was breathing deeply, drawing the air, tainted though it was with all the pollution of the city, into his lungs eagerly. Then he remembered that his fellow prisoner had been a long time captive, and to him this air was fresh with a kind of freedom.
“They take us to the west wall. See-there is the pyramid,” Uranos observed.
There was an erection of alternate red and black blocks, very dark under the lowering sky. Its top was a square platform reaching perhaps some ten feet higher than the adjacent wall. Up there a small group stood awaiting them.
The flight of stairs leading aloft was very steep, its treads narrow. Twice Ray stumbled, to be finally pulled and hauled along by the guards.
Magos was there. And beside him, still in a gold court robe, with no martial trappings of helm or body armor, Chronos. But the latter did not turn to look as the prisoners were half boosted onto the platform. He was biting the nails on his stubby fingers, staring out, not at the smoke and flame above the harbor, but at the distant clouds, so ‘lowlying. An officer came up the steps of the pyramid at breakneck speed.
“Dread One,” he reported, “those who entered the city from the ruined temple have been driven back again-”
Chronos turned his head. There were flecks of white at the corners of his fleshy lips. His eyes were wild and did not seem to really see outward but rather inward. And Ray knew that this would-be ruler of the world was now filled with fear.
“Kill! Kill!” he screeched. “Let there be blood and burning. Let not one escape! Return not unless you bring also their heads-each and every head!”
The officer passed Ray in his going. And the American noted that his face was drawn and haggard, as if
`the news he had brought was not good but ill and that he had reported defeat instead of part-victory.
It was Magos who gave the next order. Chronos stared once more at the clouds from which came the sound that had been like a distant murmur of ugly, angry surf within the temple and that was not the raging of a sea gone mad but the clamor of a major battle.
“Place them at the pillars-lash them fast,” Magos commanded his priests.
The platform on which they stood was ringed with pillars. They were strong, firmly rooted, and several feet taller than Ray and Uranos who were now bound to them. Uranos nodded across to Ray as Magos came
_ to inspect their bonds narrowly. Then the high priest called to Chronos.
“All is in readiness, Dread One. Shall it be done?”
His manner was outwardly subservient, but malice lurked beneath the lip service he gave the Poseidon. Almost reluctantly Chronos came away from his view of the battle.
His fingers, bloody where he had bitten the nail quicks, were pressed to his wobbling paunch as if some inner pain thrust there. But he summoned the energy to laugh at Uranos.
“Ha-true blood dies-Atlantis falls-is that not what they said all those years agone? Well, those who mouthed that did not know the Loving One!” He looked then to Ray.
“Sydyk out of Uighur-more or less than that, Magos tells me-If you are he-or that-which the Naacals called from another world, then now is the time we shall see whose calling has summoned a greater power. And I think that you are the less-since Phedor was able to summon you when he wrought magic with what was once against your flesh. Such magic moves lesser men, and when you answered to it, then you proved that you were not of the Outer Ones, the terrible ones we have dealings with. So shall you be food for the greater and aid it in bringing forth more of its kind-”
Some of that made sense, but not all. It was apparent that the Atlanteans knew or guessed his identity, thought that he might be some focus of unknown power-but, was that true? Ray sought to reach the will within him. It lay there still, but to his appeal there came no answer.
“Can those beyond”-Chronos waved his hand-“can they see clearly?”
“Yes. They have far-seeing glasses that will be trained upon us.”
“Then begin, begin! What do you wait for? Or is there danger for us?” The Poseidon gave back a step or two, edging for the stair head.
“Never, Dread One. The Loving One will not turn against its masters. Prepare them for the embrace-”
Guards were on Ray, slashing at his worn tunic, ripping it down so that he stood bare to the waist. One drew his dagger and cut twice across the American’s breast, leaving a shallow cross-shaped wound that welled blood. There was no harm in the cuts, and the reason for them Ray could not guess. Uraiios, he saw, had been similarly marked.
“Go!” As Magos gave permission, the priestly guards departed with the speed of those leaving an ill-omened place. And Chronos withdrew to the very edge of the platform. It was plain that for all Magos’s reassurance, he did not want to front too closely this ultimate weapon. _
Magos held a brown bowl of such rough fashioning that he might have patted it together moments earlier from the mud of some riverbank. In this he dropped dully glowing bits of charcoal taken from a footed brazier. Setting it equidistant from the pillars and the prisoners, he puffed the coals into glowing life and then tossed a handful of black powder on them.
Curling brown smoke followed and with it such a stench as made Ray cough, while it irritated his eyes until tears ran down his cheeks. It was as if all the unclean things in the city had been reduced to the handful of powder and set afire.
The smoke cleared, but the nauseating odor still hung there. Chronos had now retreated one step down the stairway. But Magos was smiling, and all the rest of his life-if he had much more of life, Ray thought-he would remember that smile.