The Valley of Creation

He lowered the gun he'd kept leveled as Tark came loping back to them. 'There can be no delay now! We must hurry!'

'So Kree gathers the Clans for war?' Shan Kar said fiercely. 'So be it! They shall learn their masters when they come against men!'

The wolf made no answer but his eyes flared brilliantly as he turned to lead on.

Nelson, aware of the vital necessity of keeping the way back to the horses clearly in mind, estimated they went nearly a mile more along the forested ridge before Tark stopped. The wolf led them down the slope from the ridge a little. Here was a fire-scarred break in the trees that gave vision downward.

'Vruun!' exclaimed Shan Kar in a taut whisper.

Nelson, startled, perceived in his first glimpse that, in the level forest down below this ridge, there sprawled the big river. And beside the river, on their side of it, glimmered the lights and buildings of the city of the Brotherhood.

'Blimy!' choked Lefty Wister. 'Look at that place!'

Nelson realized that he was looking upon a city whose strangeness had no counterpart on Earth.

Chapter VIII WEIRD CITY

Immeasurably ancient and alien looked Vruun, its glassy bubble-domes and towers brooding beneath the stars. Torchlight spilled from open doors and windows to illuminate vaguely its streets and enlacing forest- ways.

For Vruun, like Anshan, was a city into which the forest came. It was like a Venice, with winding ways of woods instead of canals — woods that were woven into the very texture of the city.

Eric Nelson, crouching with Shan Kar and the Cockney and the great wolf above the city, felt a cold shock of incredulity as he glimpsed the figures that came and went past lighted doorways down there. For those figures were not all human.

He had anticipated that. But anticipation had not tempered the shock of actually seeing it.

'It's a devil's city!' husked Lefty Wister. The little Cockney was shivering. 'Look at those animals!'

'Now you understand why we Humanites rebelled and seceded from Vruun!' came Shan Kar's throbbing whisper.

Men and beasts came and went together across those torchlit doorways below. Men and women in silk or warrior dress. And beasts of the Brotherhood, mingling with the humans, jostling them.

Nelson glimpsed a little pack of gray wolves trotting into the city from the south. He saw two great tigers moving out of it that way. And across a shallow ford a half-dozen wild-maned horses came splashing over the river to Vruun.

Men and beasts of the Brotherhood-meeting and mingling in fantastic fraternity in this ancient, alien city! Wings swept across the sky and he saw great eagles gliding down toward the openings high in the glassy towers. He realized then that those towers had been built as eyries for the Winged Ones, that all Vruun, like Anshan, had been built to house this incredible fraternal mingling of species!

'There are too many abroad in Vruun — too many for this late!' Shan Kar was muttering.

'The coming of war has stirred all the Qans,' came Tark's answering thought.

The wolf continued quickly. 'Jhanon, the prisoner you seek to free, is held in the Hall of the Clans. But the Guardian and the Clan-leaders undoubtedly hold council there tonight.'

Nelson glimpsed the distant building at which the wolf was gazing, an enormous pale bubble-structure, shimmering vaguely in the starlight near the center of the forest city.

'You've got to get us into the hall, so that we may liberate Jhanon,' Shan Kar quickly told the wolf.

Nelson realized that everything was working their way. The fact of the Humanite prisoner being in that building made it possible to let Tark lead them right in there before they turned on him. Yet he had a dim suspicion that this fortunate coincidence was too fortunate! If Tark had really fathomed that their mission was to seize Kree and Nsharra—

The wolf's clear thought interrupted his uneasy speculations. 'There's only one secret way to the Hall and that's by the drains of the ancients.'

'We could too easily lose ourselves in that maze of tunnels,' objected Shan Kar.

'Not if I guide you,' Tark assured. 'But the decision is yours. You can see there is no other way for you to enter Vruun.'

Nelson liked the prospect less and less. But it was obviously madness for them to try entering the city openly. Unless they took the wolf's way in they must give up the whole attempt.

He said as much to Shan Kar. 'We'll try it. Lefty, you can wait here if you want to.'

'I'm goin',' whispered the Cockney hoarsely.

'We will swing around to enter Vruun from the north side,' Tark said, 'Few of the Brotherhood ever go out that way from the city.'

'Why not?' Nelson demanded suspiciously.

Shan Kar answered, pointing. 'The Cavern of Creation, the forbidden place, lies up there.'

Nelson stared with swift interest. He saw that, north of Vruun, the level forests that encompassed the city marched up to grassy hills that were the foothills of the great northern mountains. In the face of those dark hills he glimpsed a great cavernous opening. He could see it in the dark because light came from it-a vague, unreal, quivering white glow.

The light danced and wavered, throbbing like a heart. Witch-light, ghost-light, pulsing mysteriously from that great opening!

'Yes, that is the Cavern,' Shan Kar answered his thought. 'The glow is of the cold fire that forbids entrance to all except the few who know the secret way.'

Cold fire? Nelson felt a sharp wonder. There must be something deadly there to have inspired such awe and fear. But what?

Shan Kar said savagely, 'The Cavern is a curse to L'Lan! That unholy place started the Brotherhood's lying myth that our human and beast races were there created equal.'

They lost sight of that mysterious distant eye of light as they followed Tark down the forest slope. The wolf led them into the gully of a small stream-bed that ran past the north side of Vruun toward the river.

The stream-bed was empty in this dry season, its sands baked flat and hard. Its high banks hid the city from them as they approached. The wolf finally stopped and they heard his urgent thought-command. 'This way — and quickly!'

They blundered after him toward a dark, mouth-like opening in the southern bank of the little gully. Tark led into the opening and Shan Kar, sword in hand, followed. Nelson and the Cockney gripped their pistols as they too stooped and went in.

They found themselves in absolute darkness. Nelson flashed his pocket-light, startling both Tark and Shan Kar.

'What is this place?' Nelson demanded.

It was a round tunnel of glassy substance. They could not have kept footing in it but for the dried sand and silt on its floor.

'These drains carry the waters from the ridges in the rainy season down beneath the city to the river,' explained Shan Kar. 'No man knows all their labyrinth.'

'No man, but we of the Clans know,' put in Tark. 'I can lead you to an opening directly beneath the Hall.'

Shan Kar surreptitiously pressed Nelson's wrist. It was the signal they had agreed upon and he knew what it meant. They were to stun the wolf as soon as he led them beneath the Hall of Clans. Then, swiftly and secretly, they must seize Kree and Nsharra and return.

Nsharra? Nelson felt an odd quickening of his pulse each time he thought of the witch-girl who had nearly had his life once. He hated that irrational throb of excitement.