“Has your evil failed to answer your call?” asked Uranos. “You have produced smoke and a mighty smell. But what else follows, Magos?”
“Look before you, Uranos. Even now That Which Crawls comes to claim our offerings, that it may wax strong enough to open wide a door for all its blood-kin!” answered the priest.
Ray stared at the stone to which the priest pointed. There was an odd-looking shadow there. And it was growing! Under his gaze it gathered form, as if it drew substance from the very material on which it rested. And as it grew in girth, so did it gain in solidarity. No longer was it shadow.
16
FOR Ray the whole world narrowed to that shadow which was no longer shadow. Bloated sides swelled yet larger; a head pushed up and out, a blind head with no mark of eyes. Yet the head wove back and forth as if it quested by either sight or sound. Then green-black horns snapped into being, to break the wormlike outline of the head.
It had no legs but, beneath, a gaping mouth that puckered and relaxed rhythmically, wavered, thickened, grew in extension; two tentacles, and on these were ulcer pits of suckers. In color it was basically black, yet splotched here and there with a dull and loathsome green, and from it came an odor to make a man retch. A giant snail lacking any shell, a slug-Comparisons arose in Ray’s mind, but none were as stomach-turning as the thing itself.
Magos came forward, and, at either the sound or the vibration of his step, the monster’s head whipped around. Its long neck stretched; the horns waved vigorously.
“Seek your prey, dweller in the Outer Darkness,” commanded the priest. “The blood drips to beckon you-seek your prey!”
The thing raised its head high. Ray wanted to close his eyes, but he could not. A moment or two and then the cuts in his flesh or Uranos’s would guide it.
Those horns continued to’ weave jointlessly, as if testing the air. Then suddenly it lowered the worm head and humped its back as might a slug in movement. As smoothly as a flow of polluted water, it glided toward the prisoners.
It had chosen, Ray saw. His horror at that moment was so great that it paralyzed him-for he was the choice. After it moved a short distance, it gathered its bulk together in a crouch. Again the horn-waving head arose as if to verify the scent. The stench from it was a gas. Ray wanted the thing to spring now-to finish this. But instead it waited, as if it savored—like a
0refinement of the promised feast-the disgust and fear of its victim, deliberately prolonging the advance as though to suck in his repugnance.
Then it flowed again-nearer. And from this there was no escape. No escape -or was there? Was it Ray Osborne or was it the will which had brought him here that stirred then? Suppose-What he supposed he did not know but only grasped wildly-as a man caught in the sucking maw of quicksand would catch at any branch overhanging that spot-for something within him with which to do battle.
Black-black-the creeping thing of the Dark-the blackness. What fought black? White-light! The white of the temple walls of Mu; the white of a Naacal’s robe;
_ the white of-of Flame! But fire was red-yellow- Not so! The Flame was white-white with a dazzling purity. White! The will within him, all within him that dreaded death, as mankind dreaded extinction, stiffened into defense. A white Flame
And this thing from the pit-it dreaded that Flame. Ray felt it check, felt the small flash of uneasiness that lay behind that check. Its head jerked faster from side to side. Now it was no longer silent. A low, whining note hurt his ears. Or was that sound at all?
Flame-a shooting Flame-a Flame that moved and made a wall before that thing. It was there-he could actually see it now-white Flame that might have
_ seared his eyes with its force and yet did not. And in him that will swelled and flowered but-only through
;. him. So this was the why and wherefore-he was the instrument through which-Then the will blotted out his own thoughts; it must have the whole of him in this struggle.
Again the thing gave a little ground, and its keening whine grew the shriller. Fear-its fear grew! He must use that fear as the handler of a savage beast uses a lash to ward off attack. And like a whip he cracked his thought:
“Back, nameless evil, back into the world wherein you were set to dwell! Cross not into this! Back to the foulness that is rightfully yours!”
But the thing retreated no farther, only lay there, its head darting from side to side as if it butted against a wall. Then Ray knew Magos was holding it, using his counter powers to drive it on. He, too, drew upon some inner will or force. Ray faltered. The Loving One humped forward. Flame-the Flame was there
Again the slug’s advance was stayed; the angry whine arose. Under Magos’s urging it rocked back and forth, its baffled cry growing louder. But this time Ray held. How long could he do so?
They were locked in silent battle. Magos and his creature of the Dark striving to find some weakness, Ray the channel for the will that drew heavily upon his strength. He was weakening. The thing flowed-stopped, flowed again.
“Brother, give it my body!” Faint and far away was that call. “Give it me and gain time-”
“No!” Ray rallied. His body was trembling; he felt as if only the chains that bound him to the pillar kept him on his feet. Forward crept the Loving One
“On!” commanded Magos.
“Back!” ordered Ray and the will.
Noise-shouting
Ray’s concentration broke. The Loving One leaped. Too late the American tried to set the barrier again. A tentacle slapped across his body; the suckers fastened greedily on the bloody cuts. He shrank and yet could not move from the contamination of that embrace.
Flame-Flame-but there was no Flame that would touch the thing now mad with blood hunger. Only he was not yet done! It was as if deep within him he now fronted that will and demanded of it as it had demanded of him.
Ray’s head raised. Come, he told that will-be with me now! And if it had made of him a servant and a weapon, so now in the depths of extremity he reversed that. Into him flowed, after a second or two of amazed resistance, a kind of power such as he had never felt before.
The loathsome flesh pressed to him quivered. Slowly, with the added torture of physical pain, the tentacles loosened as, reluctantly, fighting, the monster drew back. Magos had released his pressure. Too late he saw what was happening.
“Flame!” Ray thought he shouted that aloud. It was an order, to his own strength, to the will he had seized. “Flame!”
Again it was there, the leaping, dazzling Flame.
“Hold-those of Mu climb the stair!” Words-without meaning. All that existed in the world was that Flame created out of thought, which must be held, and held, and held
The Loving One twisted and turned, hissing, but it retreated from the Flame. There was a cry from the stairs.
“Hold!” shouted Uranos again. “Hold but a little longer, brother!”
Magos was desperate. Ray felt the loosing of the Red priest’s power. He was strong-maybe too strong. But if he won, he must first face a fight, a real fight
The high priest strode back and forth across the platform, his thoughts sharp and swift, like thunderbolts, prodding the thing. The Loving One reared, writhed, twisted, crept forward
And the Flame dwindled. It was not Ray’s spirit but his body that weakened. And again the tentacles closed about him.
“Ray! Ray!” A call. He tried to draw upon the will, but there was nothing left—
White fire-the Flame again? Ray raised his head.
No, just a ray, touching the horns of the Loving One. It writhed against him. But the tentacles dropped, tearing his flesh. There was a roaring in his head, he saw distortedly, as through a watery mist.
Clash of steel against steel. Then he was falling, free of the pillar. Someone caught him, steadied his limp body, lowered him gently. He saw a face wavering in
and out of focus. Cho-from far away and very long ago-Cho “The-Loving-One-” He tried to warn and thought that perhaps his words were not even a whisper. But those ice-blue eyes understood; lips curved in a smile as frost-filled as a winter storm.
“Watch, brother.”
The Murian raised his hand. Cupped in the palm was a crystal, flashing rainbow lights. And from its center rayed a shaft of white light. Again Cho played that upon the horns of the thing and so drove the crawler . back, for it could not escape the beam he turned upon it.