It was calm, peaceful, the artist smiling a little as if he saw something which pleasured him. Smiling as his clothing dissolved into the mist, as his skin followed, the fat, the muscle and sinew, the bones and internal organs. Smiling still with bared teeth as his skull sat on the livid horror which had once been his body.
Then that too had vanished and there was only the mist which sang and pulsed and glided away down the facing tunnel to send murmurs and whispers of itself back in diminishing cadences.
'God!' Massak shook his head. 'What the hell is it? A leech? A parasite of some kind? Why didn't it it take us all?'
'It had fed.' Dumarest looked at the tunnel down which it had gone. 'Lopakhin ran to it, remember. It didn't have to search.'
But it would find them in its restless drifting, scenting them with alien organs, responding to the heat of their bodies, the electromagnetic activity of their brains. Or perhaps simply their bulk and composition, one different from rock. As were the things they had discarded. The debris which must have been left by others. All gone, cleared away, converted to basic energy to keep the thing alive.
'So we found it,' said Mirza. 'Or it found us. The thing I felt must be waiting. The guardian,' she explained looking at them. 'There's one in every legend. The monster which guards the treasure-but where the hell is it?'
'We'll find it,' said Dumarest.
'When?'
'Soon.' He looked at the casket, the flash of warning lights. It would have to be soon. 'In a few hours, maybe.'
Massak saw it first.
Chapter Fourteen
It was a bowl set in a cavern and centered by a column of lambent blue. Impressions fined as Dumarest studied it; the bowl was filled with a thinner mist the same color as the column, which was twenty feet high and half as large in diameter.
'It's like a fountain,' said Massak. He stood in the opening from which he had discovered the column. 'A fountain of mist, water, smoke-what the hell is it?'
Radiation made visible; energies trapped in a revealing medium which showed their writhing complexity as the beam of a flashlight was made to look solid in a dusty atmosphere. Forces which twisted, weaved, following a pattern impossible to grasp. Forming a substance which hovered between that of solid and gas. One alien in its fabrication.
It rested in a cavern shaped like the interior of an egg, the rock bearing a polished sheen. Stone shaped and worn by unknown years of attrition from the force it contained. The glow from it was caught, reflected, emphasized, enhanced by the near-mirror finish. The bowl formed a shallow pool, the edge resting ten feet from where they stood.
'We've found it!' The gun trembled in Massak's hands. 'The thing Chenault dreamed of finding. The secret of Ryzam. Look at it, Earl! The source of renewed youth. Of health. Of life itself. You can feel it. Feel it!'
Dumarest inhaled, feeling the tingle coming from the column, hearing the soft susurration which could have been the rustle of breaking atoms. Material created, changed, recreated to form a continuous cycle of pulsing energy.
One which held the same hypnotic fascination as the shining predator.
'Wait!' Dumarest caught the mercenary's arm as he stepped toward the pool. 'Let's check it out.'
'What's there to check? We've found it.'
'As others must have done. Where are they?' Dumarest looked around the chamber; it held two other openings, each, like the one they stood in, fashioned like a soaring arch. 'We can walk around the pool and see what's behind those openings. You take the left and I'll go right.'
He strode forward before Massak could argue, seeing him hesitate, then, shrugging, following his example. The opening gave on a passage with a peaked roof, the walls smooth and glowing with patches of brilliance. A twin to the one which had led them to the chamber. As he stepped back into it Dumarest saw Massak's arm waving in a signal.
'What is it?'
'Look.' The mercenary pointed. 'Another skeleton.'
One traced in the smooth rock as had been the other, the only difference being in size. The first had been that of a mature woman. This was of a child.
'Barely three feet tall,' said Massak. 'How old would that make it, Earl? Ten? Twelve?' His tone hardened. 'Who the hell would bring a child down here?'
'Maybe it was a midget.'
'Like Baglioni?' Massak shook his head. 'No, it was a child. Dying, maybe. Brought here to be cured. Then that shining thing caught it-and turned it into lines on a wall. One of those who never came back.' He looked at the gun in his hands. 'If I see it again I'm going to shoot. Don't try to stop me.'
It would be like trying to kill the air but Dumarest didn't argue. 'Let's get back to the others.' He added, 'Don't tell them about this.'
The casket lay fifty yards from the opening at the junction of galleries, too narrow to permit of easy passage. Mirza sat with her back against a wall. Her skin was gray and she breathed through her open mouth. Toyanna was almost as exhausted and sat, crouched against the casket, her fingers busy on the keyboard. The red gleams of warning lights illuminated her face and hair with touches of false comfort.
'The power's gone,' she said as Dumarest halted at her side. 'The antigrav units are dead.'
'It doesn't matter. We haven't far to go.'
'You've found it?' Relief washed some of the fatigue from her face, her eyes. 'Tama! You heard? We've found it!'
The surrogate at the end of its cable stirred, lifting its head, its hands. Self-powered it fed energy back through the wires to the pads transmitting Chenault's muscular impulses.
'How far?'
'Too far to carry the casket. We'll have to take you out.'
'No!'
'And there's something else.' Dumarest faced the surrogate as it rose to its feet. 'You know what it is. Give me the coordinates.'
'No. Not yet. Not until… until…' Chenault broke off, the surrogate jerking. 'Must be sure that… that…'
Toyanna said, sharply. 'We have no time to waste. Tama is dying.'
And would die if left in the casket. A coffin which would hold more than the withered corpse of an old man. Dumarest looked at the surrogate, at the casket, at the machine again.
He said, harshly, 'Listen to me, Chenault. I get the coordinates or I'll leave you to rot. I swear it.'
'You can't!' Toyanna looked at his face and knew she was wrong. 'Please, Earl, you mustn't!'
'It's his choice.'
'Tell him!' Mirza had risen to her feet and now stumbled toward the surrogate. 'Tell him, you fool! Tell him!'
'No.'
'Then to hell with you.' Dumarest turned. 'Come on, Mirza, let me show you what we've found.'
'What about Tama?'
'Forget him.'
Dumarest heard the rustle of clothing, the scrape of feet, the touch of air compressed beneath a moving object. Warnings which triggered his instinctive reaction and he ducked, lunging to one side, dodging the swing of the metal hand which smashed into Mirza's face.
Sending her down to lie sprawled on the floor, blood streaming from her nose, her mouth, the empty socket of an eye.
Toyanna screamed, a shrill sound followed by Massak's roar of anger.
'You bastard! Earl! Watch him! He's gone crazy!'
