The Valley of the Flame Read online

  There was a roughly circular space down there where the shade of green was different. It must be very large, for it was far away—miles in diameter. Partly it seemed to be cupped between mountains, and Raft caught the flash of a river far off circling around the nearer curve of it. Perhaps fifty miles in diameter, the place was, but distances are deceptive in the forest. He followed the trail, and it led him directly toward that oasis of green within the green.

  Raft had stood the trip well. His face was more deeply seamed, his eyes were red-rimmed, yet he felt little weakness. A sound medical knowledge helped him there. Fevers were rife in this country. Fevers, but no Indios. Animals only, and chiefly the jaguars.

  Animals! The place swarmed with life, Raft thought wearily. Everything around him was movement, the bright flutter of insects and brilliant birds, the watery gliding of a snake rippling to cover, the smooth, furtive motion of the big cats, the erratic hysteria of tapir or peccary. All about him was the jungle itself, like a vast composite animal, terribly alive.

  Then, in a clearing, he saw plainly the tracks he had been following. Craddock's, and the diamond-hunter's. Pereira had been leading. A rare blaze of sunlight glanced down from overhead, picking out the colors of leaf and flower.

  At one spot in the green wall Raft saw something curious—an oval tunnel curving away into the matted jungle as if some gigantic serpent had passed this way, pressing the vines and trees aside, flattening the floor, leaving its own shape carved out of the living vegetation. The footprints led across the clearing toward that green tunnel of gloom.

  The footprints stopped halfway across the open space.

  Instinctively Raft looked up. But there were no trees close enough. With a long sigh he let the pack slide from his shoulder, but he didn't let go of the rifle.

  There was a path, he saw now, beginning where the footprints stopped, six feet wide, depressed a little below the surface of the ground.

  Odd!

  He went forward—and jerked back, startled. Something had touched him. An invisible, cool tangibility that stood unseen here in the quiet air of the glade.

  Raft put his hand out cautiously. It was halted in midair. A smooth, glassy, invisible surface. He explored the surface by touch, since sight could not help him. The thing seemed to be a hollow tube, nine or ten feet high—he threw pebbles to test that—and it was made of some perfectly transparent substance, on which not even dust could settle.

  As Raft glanced along its unseeable winding length into the jungle he could observe how it pressed the trees aside to make way for it, supporting hanging orchids in midair, stopping the flight of a humming-bird that dashed itself in bewilderment against the solid air.

  As he stood there, wondering, the first deep roar of the jaguar echoed through the clearing. Raft whirled, lifting his rifle. He could see the leaves vibrate to that deep-throated sound, but of the jaguar itself he could see nothing.

  Yet it must be very near—it must be very large—and it must be on the verge of a charge, Raft decided, listening to the coughing breathing of the great cat.

  He was in the open here. Coming to a quick decision, he bent, seized his rucksack, and tossed it behind him into the invisible tunnel. Rifle at the ready, he backed after it, and under his feet the yielding earth gave place to something hard and smooth. The great, echoing yell came once more, reverberating strangely from the tunnel walls.

  Then something soughed past him. A whispering—dim, distant, fainter than a breath. Before him, like heat-waves in the air, a shimmer swept across the tunnel-mouth.

  Instantly all sound ceased. Raft's ears rang with the dead, intense silence. He reached out into empty air, and it was not empty.

  Across the mouth of the tube stretched the same glass-smooth barrier that were walls and roof and floor to him. The doorway was closed. The gate—the Gate to Paititi?

  A trap? Had Pereira set this snare?

  Raft patted the stock of his rifle. All right, a trap, then. But he wasn't exactly unarmed. He'd go ahead, since that had been his intention anyway. Only he would not go it blind. He would be ready.

  There was no sign of the jaguar. He put the pack on his shoulders and started walking. The footing was smooth, but not slippery. Something seemed to hold his feet down. This wasn't glass. It was, perhaps, a force-field, an invisible screen of pure energy. Da Fonseca had spoken of the unseen road.

  Check.

  He hiked on, across the clearing, into the forest, not letting himself wonder too much yet. There was plenty to mink about. Raft had long ago learned the trick of shutting his mind to thoughts which he was not yet ready to entertain.

  He had closed his mind time after time in these twenty days to one recurring vision—the gay, solemn, radiant face of the girl in the mirror, seen impossibly in one glance, and never to be forgotten.

  It was not exactly a path. Had Raft not known that he walked in a tunnel, and had it not been for the utter, dead stillness, there would have seemed no reason for alarm. The jungle still rose solid and shadowy about him.

  Butterflies fluttered brilliantly past. Birds trailed their fantastic plumage through the leaves. Now and then a cloud of tiny stinging puims blew past outside the stuff that was not glass.

  Magellan, very long ago, had written of Brazilian trees that gave soap and glass, distorted versions of the hevea that flows rich latex. There was often truth in legends. The Seven Cities of Cibola—they were real, even though they had never been paved with gold.

  Vespucci, Raft recalled from some dark cranny of memory, had mentioned a Lake Doirada, somewhere in the sertao, with shining cities on its banks. And the kingdom of Paititi, that da Fonseca had spoken of. In the old days bands of mamelucos had gone out on more than one expedition to find Paititi.

  He could recall only fragmentary scraps. Paititi, where some of the natives were dwarfs and some were giants, some had their feet turned backwards, and others had legs like birds. The usual legendary yarns.

  Nobody had ever found Paititi.

  Raft got the torch out of his pack. The path had been sinking deeper and deeper below ground level. Now, a few yards ahead, the black depths of a tunnel loomed. The tube .was plunging underground. It was impossible to keep one's footing on that breakneck slant, and Raft advanced very cautiously, wondering how Pereira and Craddock had managed it.

  The light stabbed out. There was nothing to see but the compressed earth walling him in. The tunnel angled down steeply. Too steeply. Raft realized abruptly that he had gone too far. Something had tricked him, a shifting of balance, a—a warping of gravity, it seemed. For, he realized unmistakably, an unknown force was keeping him upright as a fly keeps its footing on perpendicular walls.

  For an instant giddiness made his head swim. This ramp was not perpendicular, of course, but he had no suction cups on his feet. Nevertheless he maintained his balance on a slope of at least forty-five degrees.

  Pure energy, he thought. Walls of force!

  He went on down, though now he had no way of telling whether he was climbing or descending. Only logic showed that, since it was dark, he was probably going deep into the earth.

  Then, after a long time, came a sudden change. Light glowed curiously from around a curve ahead. Dim light, more like a darkness alive with twisting, coiling refractions. Raft went on warily.

  It was water.

  It went over and around the tunnel in a smooth, swift, glassy current, foam-marbled, perfectly silent, gleaming in the beam of the torch.

  Raft thought, The Children of Israel went upon dry land in the midst of the sea, and the waters were a wall unto them.

  Still another miracle occurred on a journey beginning to be laden with miracles. Raft's jaw set a bit harder. He went ahead, vaguely hoping that what had happened to the Egyptians wouldn't happen to him. If that wall should break, it would be unfortunate.

  The wall did not break. He went forward into a long period of blackness, broken only by the light beam. He was, he realized, very far down no
w. For all he knew he might be descending a completely perpendicular path, the warped gravity of the tunnel making such a fantastic descent possible.

  A faint glow warned him to switch off the light. Darkness closed in, but it did not last for long. His eyes adjusted them-selves to a dim violet glow that seemed to come from all sides, above, below, everywhere. Vertigo made Raft's head spin sickeningly.

  Far, far below him, but at an impossible, angle, seen slantingly through the transparent floor, was the jagged curve of an immense cavern.

  In a moment more logic asserted itself and the vertigo grew even worse, for Raft saw now that it was he himself who stood at that incredible angle, not the apparently tilted cave. It was bathed in faint violet light. The walls were crags, the roof, high above, dripped with stalactites that glittered wanly in the dimness.

  The cave was narrow and curved right and left out of sight. The tunnel swept down in a dizzying arc and vanished into a spot of darkness in a distant wall. Raft knew that he should be totally unable to keep his footing on that tremendous slide. But as he advanced gingerly on the invisible flooring, it seemed the cavern and not himself was defying gravity.

  Far down in the violet darkness something moved. Something alive. Raft could not see it clearly. Beyond it was another motion, and up among the crags of the walls, still more motion. The high, narrow, violently tilted cavern was coming alive all around him with those moving shadows which converged upon him as he stood frozen there in midair.

  Devils of Paititi!

  Biologically they were impossible. He could see only their outlines, but there were shadows that looked like wings—and great talons—and—and other things. No two of them were alike. The logic of anatomy had gone wrong, somehow, and Raft's mouth felt dry and sour.

  They had seen him, obviously. They were moving sluggishly toward him, with a slowness more disturbing than any speed—as if they knew they could afford to take their time.

  A shudder shook Raft. Though he knew that Pereira and Craddock had come this way, suddenly his footing did not seem so secure on that airy bridge. He had the sensation of toppling on the brink of a pit thronging with monsters from pure nightmare. If there were a break in this tunnel of glass, disaster would overwhelm him.

  Biological sports, he told himself, and went on.

  Ten minutes further along the dark tunnel he came to a fork of the way, the first one he had encountered. There was no clue as to which way he should turn. At random Raft took the right-hand branch, and this time luck was with him.

  The ending of the tunnel was an anti-climax. He saw the circle of light long before he reached it. It was a deep, clear radiance which seemed to block the passage. Another force-wall, Raft thought, like the substance of the tube itself. But it was different in that it reflected light, or glowed with a cool brilliance of its own.

  He touched the smooth glossy surface of it. Nothing. Simply light made tangible. Light that was, he saw, growing paler as he watched.

  Shadows and shapes appeared in the cloudy whiteness, ghostly and strange. A wavering outline darkened and altered. It was man-shaped, and Raft's gun slipped easily into his hand. Beyond the– figure were other dun traceries, tall columns, and what seemed to be a stream.

  The light faded and was gone. With a whispering murmur the barrier dissolved.

  The stream became a staircase, dropping steeply away from Raft's feet to the floor of an immense hall empty save for the columns, huger than the Karnak pillars, that marched in diminishing rows into the distance. Empty, save for these, and for the girl who stood facing him, ten feet down the stairway, very lovely, and—with something subtly wrong about her round, soft face.

  She moved her hands quickly. Behind Raft a whisper sang softly. He looked back, in time to see the barrier of the light spring into being across the tunnel's mouth.

  The road back was closed.

  CHAPTER IV.

  JANISSA

  SHE WAS as he remembered her from that brief glimpse in da Fonseca's lens. There was a prim, gay touch of wickedness about her small mouth. The shadowed eyes were aquamarine, given a subtle slant by the darkness about them. Her hair was—was tiger-striped.

  Honey-yellow and dim gold, it was a cloud about her head, so fine that it seemed to fade off into invisibility.

  Her garments, blue and gold, clung so closely to her slim body that they seemed like a second skin. At her waist was a wide belt, and now she thrust something into a pocket of it as she smiled at Raft.

  With that smile her face changed. It was infinitely appealing, completley tender and welcoming. Her voice, when Raft heard it, was as he expected. A rippling murmur, with that same familiar haunting undertone he had caught in Pereira's voice.

  The language was unknown to him, though. Seeing this, the girl switched to stumbling Portuguese, and then, shrugging her slim shoulders, tried an Indio dialect that Raft knew, though he had never heard it spoken in quite this way.

  "Don't be frightened," she said. "If I guided you this far, do you think I'll let anything harm you now? Though once I was afraid, when you hesitated at the fork of the road. But you took the right turning."

  Raft had bolstered his gun, but his hand still lingered on its cool, reassuring metal. In the same dialect he answered her.

  "You guided me here?"

  "Of course. Parror does not know; he was too busy getting enough to eat outside." She chuckled. "He hated that. He's a good hunter, but burning meat over open flames—ugh! Parror is not as complacent as you may have thought."

  "Parror?" Raft said. "Would that be Pereira?"

  "Yes. Now come with me, Brian Raft. You see that I know your name. But there's much that I do not know, and you must tell me those things."

  "No," Raft said. He hadn't moved from his position at the top of the staircase. "If you know so much, you know why I came here. Where's Dan Craddock?"

  "Oh, he's awake now." She took a tiny lens from her belt and swung it idly. "Parror gave me back my mirror when he returned, since it was no longer needed to keep Craddock controlled. So I was able to see you coming through the jungle. You had looked into my mirror, and after that I could see you. Which was lucky for you, or you'd never have been able to open the gateway to Paititi."

  "Take me to Craddock," Raft commanded, feeling very unsure of himself, and therefore acting very sure. "Now."

  "All right." The girl's hand touched Raft's arm, urging him down the steps. As they descended the enormous columns seemed to rise above them, the vastness of the huge hall becoming more and more apparent.

  "You haven't asked me my name," the low voice said.

  "What is it?"

  "Janissa," she told him. "And this is Paititi. But you must have known that."

  Raft shook his head.

  "You may know a lot about the outside world, but it's a one-way circuit. The only place I'd ever heard of Paititi was in a legend."

  "We have our legends too."

  They were at the foot of the stairs. Janissa guided him across the hall and through an arched opening into a mosaic-walled passage.

  There were symbols on those walls, but they struck a note entirely strange to Raft. Once or twice he noticed pictures, but the figures in them seemed to have no resemblance to either Janissa or Pereira—Parror. He. had no time to observe closely.

  The girl led him into a smaller hall, up a stairway, and at last into a round room whose walls were softly padded with velvet, cushioned and quilted in patterns like flowers. The floor was padded, too. The whole room was like a great pillowed sofa.

  He had a moment to take it all in—the cushiony room, its strangeness and luxury, and the rich, deep colors of the velvet. He saw at one end of the room an oval door of some semi-translucent substance opening upon dim light, and in another wall was an archway, broad and low, which looked out upon moving trees.

  There was something rather startling about the trees, but he had no time to look closely. He caught the fragrance of a breeze, though, smelling of flowers
and damp jungle lustiness where the sun seldom shines, and realized that he had come out at last upon the surface of the earth somewhere, after the long journey underground.

  "Sit down and rest," Janissa said. "You've come far."

  Raft shook his head.

  "You said you were taking me to Craddock. Well?"

  "I cannot do that yet. Parror is with him."

  "Good." Raft touched his gun. Janissa merely smiled.

  "In Parror's castle—in this land where he has power—you think that will help you?"

  "I think so. If it won't, there are other ways." He unslung the rifle from his shoulder and leaned it against a cushioned wall. "I don't know what kind of superman Parror may be, but I'll bet he can't dodge a bullet."

  "A bullet? Oh, I see. You are both right and wrong. Your weapon would have been useless against Parror outside, but in Paititi he is more vulnerable."

  Raft stared at the strange, lovely, disturbingly different face upturned to him.

  "Meaning what?"

  "Parror does not know that you are here. So—"

  "But Parror does know," said a very soft, smooth voice. Raft whirled, surprise heightening his pulse and making his breath catch. Parror!

  He had come soundlessly through the oval door, and Raft realized, with some distantly logical comer of his mind, that Parror must have been much farther ahead than he had thought, for the man had had time to bathe and change from his ragged garments. The black beard was trimmed to no more than a velvety shadow outlining the heavy, but curiously delicate chin.

  The garments he wore were thick, soft, gleaming like dull satin, and fitting so perfectly they might have been literally painted upon his body. He was fingering an odd weapon like a silver whip that hung from the broad jeweled belt he wore.

  Raft felt suddenly very unsure of himself. This was too different a meeting from the one he had been anticipating. For this was not the jungle. There was, very definitely, something about Parror that made Raft's skin crawl. Wrong—wrong—a racial wrongness he could not define. He had felt it about Janissa, but not with the violence he felt now.