The Undesired Princess (15 page)

16

More days passed mercifully swift, while Hobart waited. A hundred times a day he told himself that it was all set now, and a hundred times a day reminded himself that there would be a catch in it somewhere.

When Chidelas announced the return of Hoimon, Hobart flung a hasty farewell at the priests, notwithstanding their final wail of protest. “Come on!” he barked, catching Hoimon’s elbow and dragging the ascetic along.

As soon as they emerged from the pyramid, the bright sun was blotted out by gray mist that sprang up from nowhere and turned everything the color of damp blotting-paper, and made all outlines fuzzy at twenty feet.

“It is the interregnum,” moaned Hoimon, “When the laws of nature are void, and things neither are nor are not!”

“Doesn’t bother me,” grinned Hobart. “I only hope you don’t lose your way in the fog.”

They walked swiftly to the edge of the floor of the bowl, and began to climb the curving wall. At first it was easy; then the slope became too steep for comfortable negotiation. Hobart’s shod feet skidded on the obsidian, though Hoimon’s bare ones continued to make progress.

Then another factor entered the picture; the rock under the pressure of Hobart’s feet began to spall and chip off. While he made a couple of bad slips, losing ground each time, the resulting unevenness of the surface provided traction.

“You see, O Rollin,” groaned Hoimon, “it is beginning.”

“The crumbling?”

Hoimon nodded somberly, and gave Hobart a hand up the last few feet. On the rim of the bowl were standing two animals: a horse and a donkey. The horse was indicated as Hobart’s mount, while Hoimon took the ass. “More in keeping with my humility,” explained the ascetic. Hobart’s saddle included a pair of holsters in which were stuck two matchlock pistols.

“Come,” said Hoimon, clucking to his mount. The little animal started off with negligible urging; Hoimon seemed to have a way with animals. They skirted the rims of a succession of bowls like that which contained the temple. As they rode, the evidence of pitting of the smooth black surface became more and more obvious. When these people spoke of their world’s crumbling, they meant crumbling!

The riders came out on another savannah, and pushed their mounts hard, Hoimon apparently steering by instinct. They passed a peasant’s hut, briefly visible in the grayness, which had just collapsed into a heap of rubbish. The peasant and his family were standing in a row in front of it and cursing with verve.

Hobart shouted: “Won’t the houses in the big cities collapse?”

“Aye,” retorted Hoimon. “What suppose you I was doing whilst you awaited me? I spread word to abandon all cities, so that the people might survive the plague of rot until by some miracle another Nois be found! Hold, not so fast; here are the Conical Mountains.”

“So soon?” asked Hobart.

“It was not far.”

As far as Hobart could see, the sharp, uniform cones had begun to slump and slide, too, so that they looked almost like real mountains. When the riders entered the defiles between the cones, their animals sank up to the hocks in soft crumbly debris.

“Hasten!” shouted Hoimon. “Ere the tunnels collapse!”

The agonizing journey went on and on; Hobart chewed his lips until they bled, and hoped to Nois that Hoimon knew where he was going.

“Off!” bellowed the ascetic, suiting the action to the word. “Bring your pistols, if they have not rusted away!”

Hobart snatched them out; the barrels showed a film of red rust, but they looked as if they would still shoot.

“What are they for?” he shouted after Hoimon, who was already leaping up the switchback trail that led to the tunnel opening.

“The cavefolk,” Hoimon flung back. “They may be so maddened by the fall of rock that they will attack even me, who has lived among them! And the worst of it is that I shall have to defend myself from them—offer violence to living creatures!”

Hobart struggled up the hill until his heart was going like a tommy-gun and each breath was agony. At the cave entrance he could barely stagger, and felt like flinging himself prone and letting the world crumble away. But Hoimon barked: “Your flame device, O Rollin! Quickly!”

Hobart snapped the cigarette lighter open. Hoimon lit a torch he had placed in readiness at the cave entrance, and then the matches of the pistols. “Come!” he shouted again.

Hobart staggered after him, gasping deeply through his open mouth. As he entered the darkness he could hear faint rumblings; little bits of the tunnel roof dropped on him and got in his hair. He almost had to run, tall as he was, to keep up with Hoimon’s gigantic strides. A grinding thump behind told of a larger fall from the roof.

Hoimon suddenly halted, the torch throwing twisted shadows. He held up a warning finger. Hobart heard again that shrill inhuman cry; he was sure that all his hair was standing straight on end. The warbling shriek came closer, and something moved in the corridor ahead.

It was so much worse than anything Hobart had anticipated that the engineer came close to passing out. It was manlike, but dead white and eyeless and covered with long sparse tactile hairs like cats’ whiskers. It exposed its fangs, repeated its unearthly scream, and ran toward them with long arms reaching.

Hobart thrust one pistol past Hoimon and pulled the trigger. The flash blinded him and the roar brought down a cascade of fragments from the roof, but when his vision cleared he saw that the thing was lying supine and still.

Hoimon cleared the body of the caveman in one great bound. Hobart struggled after, and then they halted as the whole tunnel was blocked by the white things. Hobart fired the other pistol, handed it wordlessly to Hoimon, drew his sword, and plunged ahead.

He cut down one, then another; then they were all around him, and something fastened its teeth in his leg . . . He hacked and thrust in a frenzy, and heard the hard breathing of Hoimon behind him and the
thump, thump
of Hoimon’s pistol butt on white skulls. Hoimon shot that wonderful extensible arm past Hobart and knocked over a couple facing him, while through the engineer’s head ran an inane little syllogism:

Cave-dwelling organisms (cave shrimps, cave salamanders, etc.) are white and blind.

These cavefolk are genuine cave dwellers.

Therefore these cavefolk are white and blind.

Something shot past Hobart’s head with an audible swish: the body of a caveman, which crashed into the crowd in front, mowing them down like a cannonball. Hoimon dashed past him, swinging the pistol by the barrel and still holding the torch; then halted and backed, almost stepping on Hobart. He called over his shoulder: “Back! The Tunnel col—” The rest was drowned in a deep grinding roar; in the dim torchlight Hobart could see, down the tunnel ahead, masses of rocks moving, pouring into the corridor, and then thick dust billowing toward them. The footing shook, and the two human beings took to their heels.

Behind them came the shrieks of more cavemen, pouring into the uncollapsed part of the tunnel from some obscure side entrance. Hobart heard their feet pattering, and swung his sword blindly behind him as he ran. He was rewarded by hitting something and hearing a scream. The little gray spot that was the outer world seemed to get no nearer; then it expanded suddenly. Both men went straight down the mountainside in long, slithering leaps. Hoimon had finally lost his towel, and was bleeding from a dozen bites and scratches.

Hobart asked: “Will they follow—”

“There is no sun to stop them,” answered Hoimon, mounting his ass. Hobart sheathed his sword and swung atop his horse just as the pallid horde poured out of the tunnel mouth and spilled down the slope like popcorn.

The animals hurried off without urging, and were immediately out of sight of the ghastly tribesmen. However, the thin piercing screams followed after and did not grow appreciably fainter.

“Are they coming after us?” asked Hobart.

“Yes, by scent. When we get out of the Conical Mountains we can outrun them.”

“Hey, Hoimon, if the tunnels have collapsed, how’ll I get back to my world?”

“You cannot, my friend.”

“Isn’t there any other place—”

“Not that I know! The tunnel end is the only point where the barrier is thin enough for my spiritual perfection to penetrate. We must return to the pyramid of Nois.”

“What? I’ll be damned if—”

“You have no choice, O Rollin. Know that you alone can end the interregnum and bring back the sun. Until you do, the cavefolk will pursue us across half the world if need be. It will probably not be necessary, for they can run down the swiftest horse in time. Now save your breath, for we come to the open land.”

They trotted out between the last pair of cones and broke into a gallop. The screams pursued and became gradually fainter. But they did not die altogether.

After several briskly running miles, they passed the collapsed peasant’s hut. It occurred to Hobart that the cavefolk would not be too nicely discriminating in their appetite. He pulled up and shouted to the peasant: “Run for your lives! The cavemen are coming!”

The man stared at him stupidly. Hoimon remarked: “They can never escape afoot, O Rollin. The cavefolk will hunt them down by scent and devour them, as they will many another unless thwarted.”

“How far to the pyramid?” snapped Hobart.

“Perhaps two miles more.”

“Okay, we’ll give these folks the animals. Get off!” Hobart dismounted and repeated his warning with more detail. Thin shrieks wafting through the fog carried conviction, and the family mounted with stammering thanks and rode off.

Hobart went through the pockets of the jacket of his conservative brown business suit—now a much wrinkled, stained, and faded garment—and discarded the coat itself and his necktie. Then he set out at an easy long-distance stride, gripping his scabbard in his left fist. Hoimon trotted beside him.

The ululation of the cavemen came faintly for a long time. Then they waxed little by little. Hobart and Hoimon exchanged glances but said nothing, saving their wind. Hobart was pretty tired from his previous exertion, but had some miles of running left in his legs if he were not forced to sprint.

The cries were a lot louder when they reached the area of the black rock bowls. Hoimon led the way, trotting around arc after arc. In one glimpse back Hobart could barely make out a crowd of little figures moving in the grayness behind them.

“Hasten,” breathed Hoimon, lengthening his colossal stride. Hobart pumped after him, realizing that the pursuers were gaining continuously.

He was debating whether to throw away his sword when they arrived at the bowl containing the glowing white pyramid, one definite thing in that world of half-light. Hoimon ran right down the side with enormous strides. Hobart took four such leaps and turned his ankle and finished the slope rolling over and over with the scabbard banging his shins and prodding his ribs. He stopped rolling at the bottom and tried to get up, but the outraged foot would not support him. Screams drew his regard up; the cavemen appeared on the rim of the bowl.

Hoimon picked Rollin Hobart up, tucked him under one arm, and trotted heavily to the pyramid. Hobart was inside in the presence of Psylleus and Chidelas before he knew it.

The two priests and the ascetic shouted at him all at once: “Quickly, lord, ascend thy throne! Else the cavefolk will do us to shameful death!”

“But they can’t come in
here
—” protested Hobart.

“Aye, but they can!” replied Hoimon. “Whilst the throne is vacant this is but a pyramid of curious luminous rock, no more! Hasten!”

“Damn it, why don’t one of you guys do it? You’d make a better Nois than—”

They interrupted with simultaneous shouts of protest: “My humility forbids—” “. . . we priests are chosen precisely because we lack such ambitions . . .” “Oh lord, do thy duty!”

They would rather argue till the cavemen at them than ascent the throne, thought Hobart. The shrieks came near through the stone walls; the cavefolk had reached the floor of the bowl . . .

With a silent curse Hobart snatched the robe that Psylleus proffered, and hobbled up the steps of the throne. With each step the ascent became easier. He made the last two in one leap, and jumped into the square, uncomfortable-looking seat as if he were playing musical chairs.

At once the grayness outside vanished. The fog whirled away (Hobart did not know how he could see it do so, but he could) and the sun burst out bright and glorious. The cavemen crowding outside burst into chattering squeaks of dismay.

Hobart shouted: “Let the cavefolk be immobilized in their present positions until I decide what to do with them!”

At once the squeaks ceased. The pyramid was ringed by white, eyeless, fanged statues.

Hm, not so bad, being Nois! Hobart leaned back, finding to his surprise that the throne was perfectly comfortable. There was a lack of bodily sensation, as when one is floating in a saline bath at just body temperature. The pain in his ankle faded away, and the ache in his overtaxed lungs disappeared.

Down on the floor below, three figures, two white-robed and one clothed in nothing but holy dirt, prostrated themselves in adoration.

Hobart relaxed for a full minute, enjoying the sensation. Then he tensed himself again. He called: “Let there be a new and adequate set of cages in the Royal Zoological Gardens of the City of Oroloia! Let the cavefolk, restored to their normal activity, be placed therein! All right, you guys down there, get up! You embarrass me. And I’ve played God all I’m gonna. Ugh!”

Hobart had tried to rise from his seat and had found to his consternation that he could not. He braced his muscles and heaved. “Unh!” he grunted, but still could not rise.

“Hey!” he called to his worshippers. “What’s the idea? I want to leave!”

Psylleus looked honestly amazed. “O Nois, verily—what thou sayest is against all reason! It is unprecedented that thou shouldst wish to depart thy glory!”

“That’s just because you never tried to make a Nois out of a Rollin Hobart before. Get me out of this!”

“O Lord,” muttered Psylleus, oozing reverence, “verily thou canst not leave until thy successor is at hand, for to do so would be to lower the dignity of thy office, which is eternal. Thy servants know no way to release thee.”