Page:Amazing Stories Volume 21 Number 06.djvu/37

Rh beneath the level of the great road-tubes through which we had approached. Now there were great hangings in their places over the doorways, the tremendous, unrotting, metallically shining weaves of the old Gods, glass threads colored and intermingled with gleaming metallic threads into patterns and pictures, depicting the mighty scenes of that life that is to man but an enigma of mighty mysterious meaning hung from the walls, hiding the stone. Much of the stone itself is covered now with metal as we descend, worked metal, in patterns reminiscent of no world of my knowledge, of no world I had yet seen in the old records. For that matter, a great deal of the cavern world is covered with solid metal, which looks as though it were sprayed on the cavern walls in a molten state and then worked into artistic designs. The work depicted beings, men occasionally, but as often like no life we know, at work, at play, at love, and at war. But principally these figures are engaged in work or study or experiment of a nature at which one can only guess. I surmise that someday some man will decipher the meanings of these great metal histories upon walls and find there complete and detailed decriptionsdescriptions [sic] of vast scientific discoveries, of the nature of matter and energy upon which the scientific base of their stupendous life rested.

For the most part the message is too vast for one mind to grasp in passing, and I doubt that many of them would yield up their super-world mental concepts to any mind but the genius prepared especially for the job, and that after years of study. And I think, too, that no other study would yield him such a rich reward.

We passed through many of these metal chambers and corridors, our minds awhirl with the overpowering beauty of the place, here cleaned of its time dust, and revealed in near its original beauty by polishing. Then we entered what had been the throne room of the ancient Lord of the place. We were drawn now by a pleasant, overpowering ray-impulse rather than driven by a burning in the seat of the pants, as before. Drawn to the figure that sat upon the throne, dwarfed into insignificance and ugliness by the beauty and size of the massy seat of the ancient God. He was a Mephisto, my mind decided, that lean saturnine face, that lank black hair, that over-long, over-slender figure, that smile that was mockery itself, added to a certain consciousness of power, a certain cynical wisdom, all told me here was one of the antique ray-groups whom I have chosen to call the Latter Gods—the first successors to the original homes of the true ancient Gods. His voice was dry and shrill, his age one would not know, as he spoke:

WATCHED your coming on the great wall-screen, 'tis set to watch always the one open approach to this place. Is it true what I saw there in your minds, that you came here but to read the old records in my ancestor Zigor's collection?"

Nydia, who trusted her own subtleties better than my straightforwardness, answered:

"Yes, that is why we came, my Lord. Are you of the family of the ancient Zigor Mephisto, or some other, since come here?"

"I am some kind of grand-nephew of the old fiend, I suppose. I have always borne his name. It does not matter much. I came here, like you, to read the collection, one of the greatest still in order from that time when men still had sense in their heads of one kind or another. I stayed, for I have given up hope of finding wisdom on earth, and my old bones crave less tiring pursuits than searching for it."

Nydia, nearly purred, for his words had opened hope in her heart.

"Oh, you are one who studies that antique science revealed in the thought records, one who knows; I am glad we found you! I—we, have studied somewhat, too, but there is so much to learn and only one life to learn it in."

The cynical, weary expression of the seated figure's face lifted a little at Nydia's sweet ways and he leaned toward her.

"Don't try to tell me there is life in the caverns with wits between its ears? I will have you boiled in oil, the lot of you, if you lie to me about that. As for you, you little blind beauty, if you are stuffing me with wool, I will have your lovely body gold-plated, and added to the collection. I have had enough lies in my life to satisfy me."

I spoke up, a little nettled at his way, but relieved in truth that he was interested in something beside sadism, which is, too often, the case of the old cavern families of power.

"She tells the truth, always, does my