Like big bubbles of glittering jet, the spherical buildings loomed above the enlacing foliage. The round, slim towers, with queer openings and balconies at their tops, pointed skyward like ebony fingers.
Lights within the city were reflected by a thousand curving surfaces of glass, were splintered and shattered into broken beams and sparkles.
'This place doesn't belong on Earth at all!' Li Kin exclaimed.
Eric Nelson realized that this was what upset him so badly. It was not merely the presence of a big unknown city in this hidden corner of Asia. There were many such.
It was the fact that the city Anshan matched in strangeness the strange beast-and-human folk of the valley L'Lan, that it bulked and glittered here like a city fallen to earth from another, alien planet.
They rode through the enlacing, whispering woods into the bubble-city. And Eric Nelson realized then that this city was old.
He had seen Angkor brooding in its jungles and the thousand towers of Pagan lonesome against the Burmese sky. But this place, though not a ruin, looked infinitely more ancient.
It was the weirdness of the wide windings of forest which interlaced the city that made Anshan seem older than human history. No completely human city had ever been so built. Even aside from the dark silent forest-ways within it, the city was too big for the number of its people. Few people were in its streets, few lights glimmered from the doorways of the bubble-buildings.
Yet men and women, clad alike in silken jackets and trousers, except for a few armed warriors like those they rode with, ran toward their clattering troop. Shan Kar gave them a proud wave of his hand.
'Shan Kar has returned with the outlanders and their weapons!' ran an excited cry.
'I don't get it!' Nick Sloan said, his harsh voice puzzled. 'A big city like this — yet they're crazy over a few machine-guns!'
They rode up toward a complex of black, bubble-like buildings surrounded by a wide belt of tall trees, into which all the strange dark forest-windings of the city seemed to lead. The warrior Hoik and his men, with their two captives, went on around the buildings. But Shan Kar drew rein and dismounted.
'You need not talk with me and the other Humanite leaders until morning,' he told Nelson. 'You must be tired.'
Tired? Nelson had not realized the full depth of his weariness until he dismounted. Bone-crushing fatigue made him reel. But, as always, the responsibilities of leadership stiffened him.
'You'll have our packs of weapons unloaded?' he said to Shan Kar. 'They must remain with us, of course.'
Shan Kar's face and voice were smooth. 'There is no need. They will be well guarded.'
'Yes,' Nelson nodded stolidly. 'By us. In unskilled hands they would be dangerous.'
The other's eyes narrowed but he shrugged. He called, and armored warriors appeared and picked up the heavy packs. They carried them after Shan Kar and the five outlanders, into the building.
They went through a big open doorway, like that of a cathedral, into a great entrance hall. It was broad and high-arched, a dusky, empty immensity ill-lit by torches of resinous wood that flamed in rude sockets hacked in the walls.
Torches in this shimmering lofty hall of faery-like black glass? The sight of them startled Eric Nelson. It was like finding tallow candles in a modern New York apartment.
He noted other incongruities as they were led through corridors to a suite of small rooms. Dust clung to the floors everywhere. And in the rooms assigned them were wooden chairs and bedframes, clean in workmanship but primitive compared to the palace itself.
Shan Kar, as the grunting warriors piled up the heavy packs and left, told them, 'Food will be brought soon. You will want to sleep. In the morning we will talk.'
Nick Sloan's flat voice broke in. 'Yes, in the morning we will talk-about platinum.'
The other's face tightened a little, but he nodded. 'That and other things.' He went out, and Nick Sloan stared after him with suspicion hardening his flat brown face.
He muttered, 'He's too cursed cagey to suit me. I've an idea there's a joker in his offer.'
Eric Nelson almost envied Sloan's hard singleness of purpose. The increasingly disturbing mystery of this strange valley of men and beasts had not deviated the other a hair from his goal. Lack of imagination and of sympathy served Sloan well.
A frightened-looking olive-skinned girl in silk brought them food in earthenware bowls and platters-coarse wheaten cakes, a mush of cooked vegetables and a jar of yellow wine.
Nelson drank heavily. Then fatigue crushed him down like a giant, gentle hand onto one of the low beds.
Time unreeled backwards as his tired brain sank into darkness. L'Lan was a dream and ten years of Asia were a dream and he was back in his old slant-walled bedroom under the eaves of an Ohio farmhouse.
He did not awaken until sunlight splashed his face. The others were waking, rubbing bleared eyes and unshaven faces, looking wonderingly around the black, glassy rooms.
The bearlike warrior captain, Hoik, came in as they finished breakfast. He said curtly, 'If you're ready to come we'll talk now.'
'Talk with whom?' Eric Nelson demanded. 'Who, exactly, runs things here?'
Hoik shrugged big shoulders. 'We Humanites are not a government yet. We're a faction that seceded from the rest of L'Lan. Shan Kar and I and Diril and old Jurnak have been the leaders.'
The two called Diril and Jurnak, a thoughtful-looking younger man and a bearded oldster, were waiting for them outside the room and went with them through the curving glass corridors.
The place was all of black glass. But not ordinary glass. That, Nelson knew, could not have supported such stresses and strains. This city was of an unknown material. A miracle-city, a city that might have come from another planet, hidden here in deepest Asia and inhabited by a semi-civilized people! It didn't make sense.
Hoik paused, Nelson and the others with him, at the entrance of a spacious hall like the heart of a huge black pearl. But here too dust dimmed the gracious curves, the furniture was primitive.
'What's Shan Kar doing?' demanded Nick Sloan as they looked into the hall.
'He's still talking with Tark,' said Hoik.
Eric Nelson felt a shock of astonishment as he looked at the strange scene in the dusty glimmering glass hall.
Near the far wall of the room, secured by a heavy throat-chain to a massive staple in the wall, crouched the giant wolf Tark. Shan Kar sat in front of the wolf, looking silently down into the brooding, smoldering green eyes of the beast.
'Talking? But no one is
'It's supposed to be telepathy, I guess,' said Sloan, jeering. 'The same as he claimed to use with that eagle.'
Shan Kar heard and got up and came toward them. He looked at them with a flash of impatience.
'You still don't believe? In spite of your powerful weapons you outlanders have things to learn.'
He spoke to the younger Humanite leader. 'Get thought-crowns for them, Diril.'
Diril went out of the room and came back with five of the ancient-looking platinum circlets, each one mounted with two quartz disks.
Shan Kar handed them to Nelson and his comrades. 'Put them on. Then you can hear.'
Nelson hesitated and Li Kin handled his circlet in obvious nervous fright.
'They won't hurt you,' said Shan Kar sardonically. 'We of L'Lan do not need them for talk like this. Our minds and the beasts' can converse easily.
'But at a distance these thought-crowns our forefathers made let us hear thought more loudly. They should enable your minds to hear.'
They put on the platinum crowns, looking oddly like hard-faced saints in haloes.
'Well, can you hear now?' asked Shan Kar.
Eric Nelson was startled by realization that Shan Kar's lips had not moved, that he had not
'Blimy, it works!' whispered Lefty Wister, with awe. 'You can hear the blighter think!'
