The psychology of a feline race—that might be the answer. …
Raft was lost in thought for a long time. He roused when the panel opened to admit not Vann, but a guard and a page, with a food-cart. After the meal he again fell into his reverie. It should be night now, but the days in this land would be as long as the nights, abnormally long.
Basically the people of Paititi were feline, as he was of simian stock. Monkeys are curious. The instinct of curiosity is strong in the human race. But cats lose interest quickly. They are not builders. They had taken possession of these castles, reared long ago by the mysterious First Race, and renovated. Cats were essentially hedonists. But the factor of intelligence was a strong influence, and one whose strength Raft could not estimate.
Could he base any plans on rules of logic, in a land where the human factor was so alien to his own experience? A race of cats might have unpredictable reaction….
Low, urgent, warning, a wordless murmur whispered softly from across the room.
CHAPTER IX.
ASSASSIN'S PLOT
RAFT WAS ON HIS feet facing the doorway before those last echoes had died. The translucent oval was open now, the way of escape clear. But barring his path was a figure, veiled in soft grays, her face hidden, and both loveliness and horror breathed out from beneath the shrouding veils.
Her hands, slim, pale, were bare, and held an instrument unfamiliar to Raft, though he had heard it before. Again the white fingers moved across intricate strings and keys. Once more the music breathed out. More urgent now, summoning him.
'Yrann?' Raft said questioningly. The shrouded head bowed once. He stepped forward.
'The guard?'
Yrann beckoned. She turned toward that inviting portal, and Raft was at her heels, but warily. The corridor outside held no menance.
The guard was standing motionless. He did not turn his head. By the door, he stood frozen, his eyes wide, staring at a milky, glittering little sphere on the floor at his feet.
Raft's eyes were drawn to that globe. Colors were moving and coiling slowly beneath its surface. It was growing larger….
The soft, urgent strings roused him. Yrann moved forward, bending to lift the sphere and hide it in her veils. The spell snapped. But the guard, Raft saw, still was motionless.
He pointed to the man and raised his brows questioningly. The music sounded reassuring, somehow.
'The guard will not wake. Not for a while.
Raft noticed that the oval door had closed behind him. Yrann was beckoning again. Which meant exactly what? Treachery? Perhaps. The cat people were unpredictable. But, at least, it was better than sitting in his prison waiting, and Raft felt quite able to protect himself against a woman.
He followed her along the corridor.
She took a circuitous route, Raft thought. They met no one, with the exception of a page who came hurrying toward them from the distance. Instantly Yrann pressed Raft aside, into a shelter behind a velvet tapestry. The page passed unsuspiciously, bowing to Yrann as he went. Then, after a moment, the journey was resumed.
It ended before another hanging that Yrann thrust aside, urging Raft through and letting the drape fall again. Now that familiar dim light—or, rather, absence of it—made Raft close his eyes briefly. There was utter silence.
Through the stillness Yrann's music sang. Her fingers dwelt on his arm.
She guided him forward, making no misstep even in this vague gloom. Swiftly they approached the silk- heaped dais where the king had sat.
The shrouded form beside him began sending out emanations which were curiously ominous.
'What is it, Yrann?' Raft said. 'What do you want?'
The oboe murmured, the strings twanged, and there was something evil in the minor notes that sounded.
The music held malignance.
Yrann touched the cushions of the dais reflectively. Her hand lingered on the softness where Darum's body had lain. Then again that cool, wordless song whispered evilly, with a conspiratoral secrecy about it. It was heavy with suggestion.
Yrann turned toward the back of the dais. Curtains hung there. She held one aside, beckoning till Raft came to her side. Gently she guided him to a little alcove in the wall.
She pressed something into his hand. And stepped back, letting the curtain drop.
Wait, the music said. Wait now.
He was in utter darkness. But he knew what it was that he held. His free hand investigated cautiously. And recoiled from vicious, razor-sharp metal.
He pulled at the curtain. Yrann's harp-oboe shrilled sharp warning. The velvet fell back.
Then soft footsteps fading into stillness. A rustle. He sensed that Yrann had gone.
But he knew unmistakably now why she had brought him here.
Working his lips as though he tasted something unpleasant, Raft leaned back against the wall. Yrann had helped him, if only for her own purposes. Now the idea was to get out of the castle, somehow.
On the curtain before him a ghostly, pale movement was visible. His eyes had adjusted now, and he could make out a shadow, man-shaped, cast on the fabric—the shadow of a man whose hand held a long-bladed dagger.
His own shadow. He turned. Behind him was no wall, but one of the familiar oval doors. But its glow was dimmed, and the crawling flecks of light were very faint.
He located the brightest one and laid his hand upon it.
The oval panel lifted and was gone. Instantly a blaze of light dazzled him.
His weapon ready, Raft waited, blinking. But there was nothing alive in the room before him. Only a fantastic glitter of brightness and shining metals, a richness of flamboyant color that contrasted strangely with the gloom of the chamber behind him.
Struck by a new thought, he stepped back, through the curtain, and swung it into place. The material was opaque. No hint of light filtered through. If Yrann, or anyone else, entered, his hiding-place would not be betrayed by an oval glow on the dark hanging.
Satisfied on that scorn, Raft again entered what he saw to be Darum's treasure-vault.
If he expected a hoard of gold and diamonds, he was disappointed. There were diamonds, highly polished and many-faceted, but they seemed to hold equal place with quartz crystals that were used for the same purpose of jewelry and decoration. There was metal here, curious alloys in which hints of rainbow colors rippled, like oil on water. And weapons, many weapons.
The blades were of good quality, which was to be expected, for manganese, beryllium, and chromium were found in Brazil. There must be deposits of the elements here in Paititi. Certainly there was silver, for delicately shaped and engraved vases of it, burnished and shining, were set in a row around the walls.
It was the loot of a strangely alien civilization. Some of the objects the cat people found beautiful were ugly to Raft's eyes. One set of very plain, sleek metals reminded him of Brancusis. His gaze followed arcs and curves that were curiously satisfying and oddly suggestive, though he realized he could probably never completely understand the principles that underlay the art-forms of this race.
There were more utilitarian objects. Many of them were dueling-gloves, with their razor-keen triple talons curving out viciously from the fingers. Raft picked up one of these, jeweled and ornate, and drew it on his hand. The claws ran the full length of his fingers, he found, and instinctively his hand tensed and curved.
Encrusted as it was with gems, the glove could be used as a handy substitute for brass knuckles. Which would probably shock the cat people, Raft thought sardonically, as he slipped the gauntlet into a capacious pocket he had discovered in his garments.
