The Bronze Bell Part 41

"Hearken, O my Swords! He, thy Chosen, prayeth for entry! What is thy welcome?"

One by one the blades began to s.h.i.+ver, clas.h.i.+ng their neighbours, until the curtain of steel glimmered and glistened like phosph.o.r.escence in a summer sea, and the place was filled with the music of their contact; and through their clamour boomed the Bell:

"O my Chosen!" Amber started and held himself firmly in hand. "Look well, look well! Here is thy portal to kings.h.i.+p and glory!"

He frowned and took a step forward as if he would throw himself through the archway; for he had suddenly remembered with compelling vividness that Sophia Farrell was to be won only by that pa.s.sage. But as he moved the swords clattered afresh and swung outwards, presenting a bristle of points. And he stopped, while the Voice, indifferent and remote as always, continued to harangue him.

"If thy heart, O my Chosen, be clean, unsullied with fear and guile; if thy faith be the faith of thy fathers and thy honour rooted in love of thy land; if thou hast faith in the strength of thy hands to hold the reins of Empire ... enter, having no fear."

"Trick-work," he told himself. He set his teeth with determination.

"Hope they don't see fit to cut me to pieces on suspicion. Here goes."

He moved forward with a firm step until his bosom all but touched the points.

Instantaneously, with another clash as of cymbals, the blades were deflected and returned to their first position, closing the way. He hesitated. Then, "That shan't stop me!" he said through his teeth, and pushed forward, heart in mouth. He breasted the curtain and felt it give; the blades yielded jealously, closing round his body like cold caressing arms; he felt their chill kisses on his cheeks and hands, even through his clothing he was conscious of their clinging, deadly touch. Abruptly they swung entirely away, leaving the entrance clear, and he was drawing a free breath when the moon glare showed him the swords returned to position with the speed of light. He jumped for his life and escaped being slashed to pieces by the barest inch. They swung to behind him; and again the drum roared, while afar there arose a furious, eldritch wailing of conches. Overhead the opening disappeared and the light was shut out. In darkness as of the Hall of Eblis the conches were stilled and the echoes ebbed into a silence that held sway for many minutes ere again the Bell spoke.

"Stretch forth thy hand."

Somewhat shaken, Amber held out an open palm before him. A second time the gusty sighing arose and breathed through the night, increasing until the very earth beneath him seemed to rock with the magnitude of the sound, until, at its highest, it ceased and was as if it had not been; not even an echo sang its pa.s.sing. Then out of nothingness something plopped into Amber's hand and his fingers closed convulsively about it. It was a hand, very small, small as a child's, gnarled and hard as steel and cold as ice.

Amber sunk his teeth into his lower lip and subdued an almost uncontrollable impulse to scream and fling the thing away; for his sense of touch told him that the hand was dead. And yet he became sensible that it was tugging at his own, and he yielded to its persuasion, permitting himself to be led on for so long a journey that his fingers clasping the little hand grew numb with cold ere it was over. He could by no means say whither he was being conducted, but was conscious of a long, gradual descent. Many times he swept his free arm out round him, but touched nothing.

Abruptly the guiding hand was twisted away. He stopped incontinently, and possessed himself with what patience he could muster throughout another long wait tempered by strange sibilant whisperings and rustlings in the void all about him.

Without any forewarning two heavy hands gripped him, one on either shoulder, and he was forced to his knees. At the same instant, with a snapping crackle a spurt of blue flame shot down from the zenith, and where it fell with a thunderclap a dazzling glare of emerald light shot up breasthigh.

To his half-blinded eyes it seemed, for a time, to dance suspended in the air before him. A vapour swirled up from it, a thin cloud, luminous. By degrees he made out its source, a small, brazen bowl on a tripod.

A confusion of hushed voices swelled as had the sound of that mighty, rus.h.i.+ng, impalpable wind, and died more slowly.

Conscious that his features were in strong light, he strove to exhibit an impa.s.siveness that belied his temper; then glancing round beneath lowered eyelids he sought to determine something of the nature of his surroundings, but could see little. The hands had left his shoulders the minute his knees touched the floor; he knelt utterly alone in the middle of what seemed to be a vast hall, or cavern, of which the size was but faintly suggested. As his eyes became accustomed to the chiaroscuro he became aware of monstrous images of stone that appeared to advance from and retreat to the far walls on either hand as the green light flared and fell, and of a great silent and motionless concourse of people grouped about the ma.s.sive pedestals--a crowd as contained and impa.s.sive as the G.o.ds that towered above its heads, blending into the gloom that shrouded the high roof of the place.

In front of him he could see nothing beyond the noiselessly wavering flame. But presently a hand appeared, as if by magic, above the bowl--a hand, bony, brown, and long of finger, that seemed attached to nothing--and cast something like a powder into the fire. There followed a fizz and puff of vapour, and a strong and heady gust of incense was wafted into Amber's face. Again and again the hand appeared, sprinkling powder in the brazier, until the smoke clouded the atmosphere with its fluent, eddying coils.

The gooseflesh that had p.r.i.c.ked out on Amber's skin subsided, and his qualms went with it. "Greek fire burning in a bowl," he explained the phenomenon; "and a native with his arm wrapped to the wrist in black is feeding it. Not a bad effect, though."

It was, perhaps, as well that he had not been deceived, for there was a horror to come that required all his strength to face. He became conscious that something was moving between him and the brazier--something which he had incuriously a.s.sumed to be a piece of dirty cloth left there carelessly. But now he saw it stir, squirm, and upend, unfolding itself and lifting its head to the leaping flame: an immense cobra, sleek and white as ivory, its swelling hood as large as a man's two hands, with a binocular mark on it as yellow as topaz, and with vicious eyes glowing like twin rubies in its vile little head.

Amber's breath clicked in his throat and he shrank back, rising; but this instinctive move had been provided against and before his knees were fairly off the rocky floor he was forced down again by the hands on his shoulders. He was unable to take his eyes from the monster, and though terror such as man is heir to lay cold upon his heart, he did not again attempt to stir.

There was now no sound. Alone and undisturbed the bleached viper warmed to its dance with the pulsing flame, turning and twisting, weaving and writhing in its infernal glare....

"Hear ye, O my peoples!"

Amber jumped. The Voice had seemed to ring out from a point directly overhead.

He looked up and discovered above him, vague in the obscurity, the outlines of a gigantic bell, hanging motionless. The green glare, s.h.i.+ning on its rim and partly illumining its empty hollow (he saw no clapper) revealed the sheen of the bronze of which it was fas.h.i.+oned.

Out of its immense bowl, the Voice rolled like thunder:

"Hear ye, O my peoples!"

A responsive murmur ascended from the company round the walls:

"We hear! We hear, O Medhyama!"

"Mark well this man, O Children of my Gateway! Mark well! Out of ye all have I chosen him to lead thee in the work of healing; for I thy Mother, I Medhyama, I Bharuta, I the Body from which ye are sprung, call me by whatever name ye know me--I am laid low with a great sickness.... Yea, I am stricken and laid low with a sickness."

A great and bitter wailing arose from the mult.i.tude.

"Yea, I am overcome with a faintness, and my strength is gone out from me, and my limbs are as water; I am sick with a fever and languish; in my veins runs the Evil like fire and like poison; and I burn and am stricken; I toss in my torment and murmur, and the sound of my Voice has come to thine ears. Ye have heard me and answered. The tale of my sufferings is known to ye. Say, shall I perish?"

In the brazier the flame leaped high and subsided, and with it the cobra leaped and sank low upon its coils. From the people a mighty shout of negation went up, so that the walls rang with it, and the echoes were bandied back and forth, insensibly decreasing through many minutes. When all was still the Voice began to chant again, and the flames blazed higher and brighter, while the cobra resumed its mystic dance.

Amber knelt on in a semi-stupor, staring gla.s.sily at the light and the serpent.

"I, thine old Mother, have called ye together to help in my healing.

From my feet to my head I am eaten with pestilence; yea, I am devoured and possessed by the Evil. Even of old was it thus with thy Mother; long since she complained of the Plague that is Scarlet--moaned and cried out and turned in her misery.... But ye failed me. Then my peoples were weaklings and their hearts all were craven; the Scarlet Evil dismayed them; they fled from its power and left it to batten on me in my sickness."

A deep groan welled in uncounted throats and resounded through the cavern.

"Will ye fail me again, O my Children?"

"Nay, nay, O our Mother!"

"Too long have I suffered and been patient in silence. Now must I be cleansed and made whole as of old time; yea, I must be purged altogether and the Evil cast out from me. It is time.... Ye have heard, ye have answered; make ready, for the day of the cleansing approacheth.

Whet thy swords for the days of the healing, for my cleansing can be but by steel. Yea, thy swords shall do away with the Evil, and the land shall run red with the blood of Bharuta, the blood of thy Mother; it shall run to the sea as a river, bearing with it the Red Evil. So and no otherwise shall I, thine old Mother, be healed and made whole again."

"Aye, aye, O our Mother!"

The flames, dying, rose once more, and the Voice continued, but with a change of temper. It was now a clarion call, stirring the blood like martial music.

"Ye shall show me your swords for a token.... Swords of the North, are ye ready?"

"We are ready, old Mother!"

With a singing s.h.i.+ver of steel, all around the walls, in knots and cl.u.s.ters, naked blades leaped up, flas.h.i.+ng.

"Swords of the East, are ye loyal?"

"Aye, old Mother!"

And the tally of swords was doubled.

"Swords of the South, are ye thirsty?"

A third time the cras.h.i.+ng response shattered the echoes.

"Swords of the West, do ye love me?"