Such objects in themselves have little or no natural evil-that comes from without. To say that a carving on the wall was evil was to impute to stone a quality it did not and never had possessed. But to say that an image which had been wrought by those who wished to give evil a gateway into the world was malign was not opposed to that basic truth.
Whoever had carved the face on the wall had been twisted mind and spirit. Elossa had stopped short only a step within the cave room. The illusions which haunted the road to Kal-Hath-Tan had been horrible-born of human suffering to leave the imprint upon the very earth itself. This, this had been cunningly and carefully constructed, not out of great pain of body and shock of spirit, but from a deep desire to embrace all the dark from which man naturally shrinks.
Stans had taken a stand before that face, his arms hanging by his sides, gazing up into those knowing eyes with visible concentration. Almost, Elossa thought, as if he were indeed in communication with whatever power that brutish carving represented.
She kept tight rein upon her talent here, having a feeling that if she loosed even a little-sent out any probe-what might answer would be. . . .
Elossa shook her head. No! She must not allow her imagination to suggest terrors which could not exist. That this may have been a “god,” the focus for some horrible and evil religion, and so have drawn to it the energy sent forth by the worshipers, perhaps even the terror of sacrifices, that was the truth. But in itself it was nothing but cleverly fashioned stone.
“Is this Atturn?” She felt the need to break the silence, to shake Stans out of that concentration. He did not answer. She dared to go forward, and, putting aside the distaste of the Yurth for body contact, she laid her hand upon his arm.
“Is this then Atturn?” she repeated in a louder voice.
“What?” Though Stans turned his head to look at her Elossa felt he did not really see her at all, that his gaze did not meet hers but in some manner still set upon the face.
Then there was a flicker of change in his expression. That deep concentration broke. That he came alive again was the only way she could explain the change in him to herself.
“What?” He swung away from her to look once more at the face, so well lighted by the torches he had set. “What? Where? Why?”
“I asked. . . is this. . . .” Elossa gestured to the face. “Atturn. He. . . it. . . seems certainly to have a mouth.”
Stan’s hands covered his eyes. “I-I do not know. I cannot remember.”
Elossa drew a deep breath. Last night this Raski had tried to kill her as she slept. In the light of morning, after she in turn had been possessed (for what other than possession had sent her sleep-walking then into the path of the sargon) he had saved her life. He had brought them here, plunging through the darkness of the tunnel as if he knew what lay at its end, lighted the torches with the surety of one who knew exactly where to find the waiting brands and the strike stone.
“You know this place well indeed,” Elossa continued, determined to pin the Raski to some admission. “How else could you have found those?” She pointed to the torches. “A hidden temple for your ancient vengeance to which you have brought me for slaying.”
She did not know why she chose to make that accusation; it was out of her mouth almost before she realized what she said. But the possible truth of it alerted her to a danger which might also be real.
“No!” He threw out his hands as if he were repulsing that gap-mouthed face, repudiating all that it might mean. “I do not know, I tell you!” His voice was heating with anger. “It is not me. . . it. . . is something else which makes me its servant. And. . . I. . . will. . . not. . . serve. . . it!” He said that last sentence slowly and with emphasis upon every word as heavy as a blow he might seek to deliver against an enemy’s body. That he believed in what he said now Elossa did not doubt. But that he could summon any defense against the compulsion which had twice ruled him, of that she had no surety at all.
The Raski swung around, his back to the face. There was a demand for belief in his expression. His mouth firmed into a thin line of determination, his jaw squarely set.
“Since I cannot control this-this thing which moves me to its will-then it is better that we part. I should walk alone until I can be sure that I am not just a tool.”
That made good sense-except for one thing. The night before she had in turn been moved unknowing, walking in her sleep, straight toward death. Yet her race had bred into them, or she always so believed, mental barriers against any such tampering. No Yurth could master the mind of one of his fellows, nor could he control even a Raski, who had no such safeguards, for more than the building of short-lived hallucinations.
This was not a matter of hallucinations, it dealt with mental power of sorts on a level totally foreign to Elossa. And that aroused a sickly dread within her. Yurth talent had always seemed supreme, perhaps they had grown unconsciously arrogant in what they knew and could do. Perhaps even, her mind produced a very fleeting thought, it was the burden of the old sin which hovered ever over them as a true necessity to preserve their code of what the talent might and might not be used for.
Was it because she had shrugged aside Yurth Burden that she had somehow also fallen under the command of this unknown factor which Stans recognized and which she must believe had some existence? If that were her fault, then it was true she, as much as the Raski, had assumed a new burden-or curse-and must learn either to dispel or bear it.
“It moves me also,” she said. “Did I not nearly walk into the jaws of a sargon without being aware of what I did?”
“This is not Yurth.” He shook his head. “It is somehow of Raski-of this world. But I swear to you, on the Blood and Honor of my House, I know nothing of even any legend of this place, nor how I have been led to where it lies, nor why I am here. I do not worship devils, and this is a thing of evil. You can smell its stench in the air. I do not know Atturn, if this is Atturn.”
Again she must accept that he spoke what was to him the utter and complete truth. Raski civilization had ended once in the great trauma of the destruction of Kal-Hath-Tan, the which she had witnessed herself in a vision. Though the people lived on, some inner spring of their courage, pride, and ambition had been broken. Much which must have been known in the days before the Yurth ship had blasted their city certainly was now lost.
Yet they stood now in a center of power. She could detect its force, like small fingers sliding over the shield she kept upon her mind, as if something curious and very confident strove to find an answer to the puzzle she presented. The farther they could get from this place, the better.
Elossa swayed. Through that mental shield, seemingly through her body, too, with a flash of pain as might follow a stroke of enemy steel had come that cry, Yurth! Somewhere-not too far away-one of Yurth blood was in danger, had loosed the call which was the ultimate in pleas, that was used only when death itself must be faced.
Without thinking she instantly dropped her barrier, sent forth her own questing search call. Once more came the other, lower, far less potent.
Which way? She had swung around to face the tunnel opening. Outside-which way? She sent an imperative demand for the unknown to guide her.
For the third time the call sounded. But not from the direction she was facing at all. No, behind her. Elossa pivoted to front the face. The seeing eyes glittered with malice. That call had come from behind-from out of the face! Yurth blood spilt here in some ancient sacrifice, leaving a strong residue of emotion which another Yurth could tap? No, it was too vivid in that first summons. Surely she would have sensed the difference between a reminder of the dead and a plea formed by the yet living. There was a Yurth in peril here somewhere-behind the wall and the evil, open mouth of Atturn.