Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs (7 page)

Now we approached another range of jagged granite peaks. I had lost all track of time and had no idea how long we had been flying over Amtor’s amazing landscape. But as the aircraft initiated its climb into the new range of mountains, I felt the temperature drop precipitously.

For the first time since arriving on Venus, I actually felt cold. The landscape visible over our pilot’s shoulder changed continuously. We had flown over lush jungle, then over grassy savannahs, and now our giant dragonfly’s four gossamer wings carried us ever higher, the terrain beneath rising into rolling foothills and the rocky scarps of towering granite mounts. At times I almost believed that we were passengers in a living organism, so convincing were the dragonfly’s movements.

After a while I felt myself becoming dizzied by the changing world outside the dragonfly. The tropicallike vegetation that I had become accustomed to on Venus now gave way to some botanical analogs of Earthly evergreens. Tall, graceful trees that could have passed for northern pines towered into the air.

We rose above the snow line, and the pine-analogs rising from the wintry accumulation caused me to feel a pang of homesickness for the warm hearths and gaily wrapped gifts piled beneath decorated evergreens that I had known and loved as a child. There was a difference, however. The “snow” of Amtor, if snow I may call it, was not the pure white of Earthly snow. Instead, it showed swirls and ridges of color where the winds of this planet drove and shifted it. It was a remarkable substance. Seen from afar, as it was when I peered ahead from the dragonfly, the colors did blend into a dazzling white. But by looking straight down, or as close to straight down as the configuration of our aircraft permitted, I could make out glittering bits of crimson, cobalt, sapphire, and indigo blue, emerald, lime, and forest green, richest gold and vivid purple.

I must have clutched Duare’s hand in my emotional longing for my home planet and the joys of childhood that I had experienced there, for she made a startled sound and turned toward me.

An encouraging expression crossed her face, and I told myself that I had found another love, another kind of love, here on Earth’s sister planet.

Eventually even the pines disappeared and there was nothing but gray granite and white snow reflecting the diffuse light that passed through Amtor’s double layer of clouds.

Without preliminary, a sound like the rattle of hailstones on a tin roof burst upon us. Outside the dragonfly’s snug cockpit and cramped passenger compartment millions of brilliant gems were cascading onto the wings and body of the aircraft.

Above us a hole seemed to have opened in the lower of the planet’s two cloud envelopes. A vortex perhaps two hundred feet in width had appeared, and within it whirled a sight both glorious and mystifying. Myriad specks of every imaginable hue circled, propelled by some atmospheric phenomenon.

Even more astonishing, through the glowing colors of this atmospheric whirlpool I could see the upper cloud layer. A similar gap had appeared there, filled with a similar array of dazzling illumination. For a moment I felt that I could actually see the sun, and again a pang of loss and longing clutched at my heart.

The colored motes that clattered off the wings and body of the dragonfly were falling like hailstones from the gaps in the two cloud layers. But the two cloud layers moved independently of each other, and soon the two whirlpools were no longer in alignment. In a short time the one above us, from which the seeming hail of colored crystals had come, closed like the iris of your eye. The hail ceased to fall.

I made mental note that the mystery of the colorful snow was solved. It was indeed a product of the cloud vortices of Amtor’s double cloud envelope. Like Earthly precipitation, I inferred, it might fall as rain, as snow, or as sleet. At the right altitude and under the right conditions, there might even be a Venusian fog of almost hypnotically swirling colors.

Above us and not far ahead I saw still another incredible vision. From the impenetrable gray wall of jagged granite there rose a precipitous escarpment of ruddy red rock, and upon its peak a gigantic structure, one that must contain no fewer than a thousand rooms, towers, and courtyards.

As if sensing my reaction to this startling sight, our pilot pointed ahead and lifted the dragonfly even higher. We circled over the amazing structure. I shook my head in puzzlement, trying to identify the image which this titanic architectural achievement called to mind.

A gasp of surprise escaped me as I realized where I had seen a building of similar nature. As a young man I had traveled to the Orient. I had been one of the first Westerners ever permitted into the secret Kingdom of Tibet. There, in the holy city of Lhasa I had been welcomed into the Potala Palace, the capitol and abode of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

And here, on an alien world millions of miles from Earth, I beheld a replica of that ancient structure.

A banner of strange design fluttered from a shaft rising above the highest point on this alien Potala. Our pilot dipped his head toward the banner; then the dragonfly spiraled slowly downward, settling finally in a broad flagstoned courtyard.

Our pilot peeled back the facetted canopy that covered the cockpit and climbed from the dragonfly. Duare and I followed suit. Our long flight had been conducted in nearly perfect silence, and our pilot maintained that silence as we were met by two Amtorians clad from head to toe in costumes of black. Their hair was swept up into peaks. Their faces were stolid and expressionless.

Our pilot turned toward Duare and myself, then spun on his heel and strode away, disappearing into a darkened doorway in the Potala.

One of the two Amtorians who had come to meet our party spoke in a clear but uninflected voice, in the language which is universally known and used on Venus. “You will follow me, please.”

He and his counterpart—I realized now that one was male and other female—turned toward the Potala and began walking toward it at a steady pace. Before striding away from the dragonfly, I swept my hand across one of its winged surfaces, where a few of the glittering Amtorian hailstones had stuck. I picked up a handful of the little gemlike objects and dropped them in my pocket.

Speaking of pockets—I must admit, at this point, that Duare and I were a pair of very bedraggled travelers. We had trekked through the jungle for days following our escape from captivity in the village of the Zorangs, at the end of which we had fought and escaped from the semi-human Andaks with their scorpionlike caudal appendages, only to confront our grassy doppelgangers, the
fearmharr arrachtach
.

We were both exhausted, filthy, scratched, and scraped. Our clothing hung on us in tatters. Our boots had been through swamp and bramble. I stared at Duare and she at me, and we both burst into laughter at what we beheld.

And yet . . . and yet . . . to me this woman, her face streaked with dirt, knots and twigs in her tresses, her hands roughened and scraped . . . to me this woman was still the most beautiful creature on two planets.

We followed our guides into the great palace. After their initial invitation to follow them, neither spoke again until we had penetrated the great entry hall of the Amtorian Potala. This was floored with a substance that might have been polished marble or obsidian. It was lighted by cressets mounted every few yards along the walls, filled with an oily substance that burned without giving off smoke but a soft, orange-yellow illumination.

The walls on both sides were lined with cyclopean statues of grotesque figures that I inferred to be the ancient gods of Amtor. Each statue was different in color and configuration. Some were human, alternately magnificently heroic and distressingly deformed. Others were of beasts or, worst of all, monstrosities that combined the features of humans and other creatures, like the half-human, half-arthropodal Andaks from whom Duare and I had escaped only through the intervention of deceptively harmless-appearing green
nathair culebra
or Amtorian tree-snakes.

High on the shadowy walls of the great hall were window slits through which the silvery-gray glow of an Amtorian afternoon penetrated.

Duare and I followed our guides up magnificent stairways and down another hall lined with alcoves and side-passages leading to left and right. With a gesture by the male and female guides, we were directed to separate chambers. As I entered mine, I thought to leave and rejoin Duare, but my way was blocked by my male guide. On the other side of the hallway, illuminated by cressets of burning oil as had been the great hall below, I could see the female guide standing outside the opening to Duare’s chamber.

Were these two black-garbed strangers our guides, our protectors, or our captors? Were we visitors to the Amtorian Potala, guests, or prisoners?

I found in my chambers a comfortable bed and a clear bath drawn in an obsidian pool. Only after lowering my tired limbs and aching torso into the refreshing waters did I realize what a sad state I had reached.

There was no way of knowing what fate awaited me now, but these facilities were at least encouraging. With my body cleansed and refreshed, I searched my new quarters further. There was an area of perfectly polished stone wall that would serve admirably as a mirror, and a piece of sharpened stone that I found served as a razor.

I returned to my bedchamber, where I found awaiting me an outfit of comfortable soft trousers and a blouse and footwear. No sooner had I donned these than my keeper, as I had come to think of him, appeared in the entryway to my bedchamber and spoke once more in his dull, almost lifeless voice.

“You will follow me.”

Well, I figured, why not? What had I to lose by complying? What had I to gain by refusing to do so?

There were no doors as such in this Venusian Potala. Rather, each suite of chambers was entered through a series of turns and baffles that effectively sealed it from the main corridor, permitting neither sound nor light to penetrate.

We retraced our steps to the lower level of the Potala, then crossed the great hall to another grand chamber. The ceiling was beamed and towered high overhead. The stone floor was covered with some substance I could not identify but which made walking most pleasant. A fireplace had been built into one wall, and a great blaze sent multicolored shadows dancing and cavorting around the room as if they were living beings with wills of their own.

As in the grand hall of statuary, window slits set into the walls near the high, beamed ceiling of this room let in additional light from the mountainous realm outside while drawing the smoke from the fireplace and maintaining the quality of the air within.

A table had been set for a meal, but it was deserted.

Most startling of all, at the far end of the great room an elaborately carved chair, almost a throne, stood on a low dais. Seated upon it I beheld a tiny, wizened human being.

It was not easy to calculate his height, as he was seated and I was standing, but I inferred that he could not have been as tall as five feet. His head was completely hairless, and his almost abnormally large cranium and bulging brow bespoke a brain of exceptional capabilities.

His face was triangular in configuration, narrowing precipitously from the width of his brow to the point of his chin. His eyes appeared huge behind thick lenses. In the midst of all this day’s strangeness, I almost laughed at myself for being impressed by the fact that he wore spectacles—the first such that I had seen since arriving on this weird planet.

He was garbed entirely in white, a high-collared tunic closed at the throat, sleeves reaching to his wrists, spotless white trousers, and even white shoes.

I stood speechless.

The apparition in white spoke in a high, shrill, almost effeminate voice, yet one that gave the impression that it could also embody unspeakable cruelty.

“Come,” he commanded.

I complied, halting a few feet away from the dais upon which he was seated.

He said, “I have awaited your arrival.” He raised a gnarled, nearly clawlike hand and gestured. Almost at once there was a sound from the entryway through which I had entered minutes earlier. Before I could turn, however, the tiny man rose from his throne and stepped from the dais.

He walked carefully, as would an aged man who feared to lose his balance and damage fragile, ancient bones. As he passed me he grasped me by the biceps. He had to reach up to do so, but his grip was most surprisingly strong. He guided me toward the elaborately set table. Hardly had we reached our places when we were joined by three more individuals.

One was the Princess Duare. Obviously her quarters had been as elaborately and tastefully equipped as had been my own. Her face bore no trace of the filth or the fatigue of our day’s misadventures. Instead her olive-hued skin glowed with the purity of youthful beauty. Her hair had been carefully coiffed in a soft, graceful fashion.

She was garbed in soft, colorfully draped cloths that resembled fine silk. Their dominant shade was a deep vermillion set off with highlights of gentle yellow that seemed almost to live in the waving light of the oil-cressets and the great fireplace. The overall effect was suggestive of an Indian sari.

Unfamiliar symbols were woven into Duare’s garments, vaguely suggestive of the signs of the Earthly zodiac, but how the Amtorians could have developed a zodiacal system without ever seeing the stars and planets was a mystery to me.

The other two figures were of similar stature and build, although clearly one of them was female and the other male. As all five of us took our seats, our almost elfin host reached for a glittering goblet that stood before his place. In the few moments that had passed since the completion of our party, unobtrusive, dark-garbed servants had filled goblets at each place.

“As is our custom,” the tiny man rasped, “we will introduce ourselves to our guests, and they to us. But first, a ceremonial sip of our
fíonbeior
.” He raised his goblet and tilted it for the barest moment toward his mouth.

This must be some beverage, I thought. I am not a great imbiber, but in my wasted youth I will confess to spending many a happy hour with my compatriots, toasting and guzzling brews of various sorts. Our American government’s so-called Noble Experiment of Prohibition has served only to give strong waters the added appeal of forbidden fruit, and as a daring young man I had been ever eager to strike a blow for freedom.