Out of Time's Abyss
reckoned without the opening in the roof. Two were down and a great
wailing and moaning was arising when reinforcements appeared from
above. Bradley did not see them; but the girl did, and though she
cried out a warning, it came too late for him to avoid a large Wieroo
who dived headforemost for him, striking him between the shoulders and
bearing him to the floor. Instantly a dozen more were piling on top of
him. His pistol was wrenched from its holster and he was securely
pinioned down by the weight of numbers.
At a word from the Wieroo of the yellow slashing who evidently was a
person of authority, one left and presently returned with fiber ropes
with which Bradley was tightly bound.
"Now bear him to the Blue Place of Seven Skulls," directed the chief
Wieroo, "and one take the word of all that has passed to Him Who Speaks
for Luata."
Each of the creatures raised a hand, the back against its face, as
though in salute. One seized Bradley and carried him through the
yellow doorway to the roof from whence it rose upon its wide-spread
wings and flapped off across the roof-tops of Oo-oh with its heavy
burden clutched in its long talons.
Below him Bradley could see the city stretching away to a distance on
every hand. It was not as large as he had imagined, though he judged
that it was at least three miles square. The houses were piled in
indescribable heaps, sometimes to a height of a hundred feet. The
streets and alleys were short and crooked and there were many areas
where buildings had been wedged in so closely that no light could
possibly reach the lowest tiers, the entire surface of the ground being
packed solidly with them.
The colors were varied and startling, the architecture amazing. Many
roofs were cup or saucer-shaped with a small hole in the center of
each, as though they had been constructed to catch rain-water and
conduct it to a reservoir beneath; but nearly all the others had the
large opening in the top that Bradley had seen used by these flying men
in lieu of doorways. At all levels were the myriad poles surmounted by
grinning skulls; but the two most prominent features of the city were
the round tower of human skulls that Bradley had noted earlier in the
day and another and much larger edifice near the center of the city.
As they approached it, Bradley saw that it was a huge building rising a
hundred feet in height from the ground and that it stood alone in the
center of what might have been called a plaza in some other part of the
world. Its various parts, however, were set together with the same
strange irregularity that marked the architecture of the city as a
whole; and it was capped by an enormous saucer-shaped roof which
projected far beyond the eaves, having the appearance of a colossal
Chinese coolie hat, inverted.
The Wieroo bearing Bradley passed over one corner of the open space
about the large building, revealing to the Englishman grass and trees
and running water beneath. They passed the building and about five
hundred yards beyond the creature alighted on the roof of a square,
blue building surmounted by seven poles bearing seven skulls. This
then, thought Bradley, is the Blue Place of Seven Skulls.
Over the opening in the roof was a grated covering, and this the Wieroo
removed. The thing then tied a piece of fiber rope to one of Bradley's
ankles and rolled him over the edge of the opening. All was dark below
and for an instant the Englishman came as near to experiencing real
terror as he had ever come in his life before. As he rolled off into
the black abyss he felt the rope tighten about his ankle and an instant
later he was stopped with a sudden jerk to swing pendulumlike, head
downward. Then the creature lowered away until Bradley's head came in
sudden and painful contact with the floor below, after which the Wieroo
let loose of the rope entirely and the Englishman's body crashed to the
wooden planking. He felt the free end of the rope dropped upon him and
heard the grating being slid into place above him.
Chapter 3
Half-stunned, Bradley lay for a minute as he had fallen and then slowly
and painfully wriggled into a less uncomfortable position. He could
see nothing of his surroundings in the gloom about him until after a
few minutes his eyes became accustomed to the dark interior when he
rolled them from side to side in survey of his prison.
He discovered himself to be in a bare room which was windowless, nor
could he see any other opening than that through which he had been
lowered. In one corner was a huddled mass that might have been almost
anything from a bundle of rags to a dead body.
Almost immediately after he had taken his bearings Bradley commenced
working with his bonds. He was a man of powerful physique, and as from
the first he had been imbued with a belief that the fiber ropes were
too weak to hold him, he worked on with a firm conviction that sooner
or later they would part to his strainings. After a matter of five
minutes he was positive that the strands about his wrists were
beginning to give; but he was compelled to rest then from exhaustion.
As he lay, his eyes rested upon the bundle in the corner, and presently
he could have sworn that the thing moved. With eyes straining through
the gloom the man lay watching the grim and sinister thing in the
corner. Perhaps his overwrought nerves were playing a sorry joke upon
him. He thought of this and also that his condition of utter
helplessness might still further have stimulated his imagination. He
closed his eyes and sought to relax his muscles and his nerves; but
when he looked again, he knew that he had not been mistaken--the thing
had moved; now it lay in a slightly altered form and farther from the
wall. It was nearer him.
With renewed strength Bradley strained at his bonds, his fascinated
gaze still glued upon the shapeless bundle. No longer was there any
doubt that it moved--he saw it rise in the center several inches and
then creep closer to him. It sank and arose again--a headless,
hideous, monstrous thing of menace. Its very silence rendered it the
more terrible.
Bradley was a brave man; ordinarily his nerves were of steel; but to be
at the mercy of some unknown and nameless horror, to be unable to
defend himself--it was these things that almost unstrung him, for at
best he was only human. To stand in the open, even with the odds all
against him; to be able to use his fists, to put up some sort of
defense, to inflict punishment upon his adversary--then he could face
death with a smile. It was not death that he feared now--it was that
horror of the unknown that is part of the fiber of every son of woman.
Closer and closer came the shapeless mass. Bradley lay motionless and
listened. What was that he heard! Breathing? He could not be
mistaken--and then from out of the bundle of rags issued a hollow
groan. Bradley felt his hair rise upon his head. He struggled with
the slowly parting strands that held him. The thing beside him rose up
higher than before and the Englishman could have sworn that he saw a
single eye peering at him from among the tumbled cloth. For a moment
the bundle remained motionless--only the sound of breathing issued from
it, then there broke from it a maniacal laugh.
Cold sweat stood upon Bradley's brow as he tugged for liberation. He
saw the rags rise higher and higher above him until at last they
tumbled upon the floor from the body of a naked man--a thin, a bony, a
hideous caricature of man, that mouthed and mummed and, wabbling upon
its weak and shaking legs, crumpled to the floor again, still
laughing--laughing horribly.
It crawled toward Bradley. "Food! Food!" it screamed. "There is a
way out! There is a way out!"
Dragging itself to his side the creature slumped upon the Englishman's
breast. "Food!" it shrilled as with its bony fingers and its teeth, it
sought the man's bare throat.
"Food! There is a way out!" Bradley felt teeth upon his jugular. He
turned and twisted, shaking himself free for an instant; but once more
with hideous persistence the thing fastened itself upon him. The weak
jaws were unable to send the dull teeth through the victim's flesh; but
Bradley felt it pawing, pawing, pawing, like a monstrous rat, seeking
his life's blood.
The skinny arms now embraced his neck, holding the teeth to his throat
against all his efforts to dislodge the thing. Weak as it was it had
strength enough for this in its mad efforts to eat. Mumbling as it
worked, it repeated again and again, "Food! Food! There is a way
out!" until Bradley thought those two expressions alone would drive him
mad.
And all but mad he was as with a final effort backed by almost maniacal
strength he tore his wrists from the confining bonds and grasping the
repulsive thing upon his breast hurled it halfway across the room.
Panting like a spent hound Bradley worked at the thongs about his
ankles while the maniac lay quivering and mumbling where it had fallen.
Presently the Englishman leaped to his feet--freer than he had ever
before felt in all his life, though he was still hopelessly a prisoner
in the Blue Place of Seven Skulls.
With his back against the wall for support, so weak the reaction left
him, Bradley stood watching the creature upon the floor. He saw it
move and slowly raise itself to its hands and knees, where it swayed to
and fro as its eyes roved about in search of him; and when at last they
found him, there broke from the drawn lips the mumbled words: "Food!
Food! There is a way out!" The pitiful supplication in the tones
touched the Englishman's heart. He knew that this could be no Wieroo,
but possibly once a man like himself who had been cast into this pit of
solitary confinement with this hideous result that might in time be his
fate, also.
And then, too, there was the suggestion of hope held out by the
constant reiteration of the phrase, "There is a way out." Was there a
way out? What did this poor thing know?
"Who are you and how long have you been here?" Bradley suddenly
demanded.
For a moment the man upon the floor made no response, then mumblingly
came the words: "Food! Food!"
"Stop!" commanded the Englishman--the injunction might have been barked
from the muzzle of a pistol. It brought the man to a sitting posture,
his hands off the ground. He stopped swaying to and fro and appeared
to be startled into an attempt to master his faculties of concentration
and thought.
Bradley repeated his questions sharply.
"I am An-Tak, the Galu," replied the man. "Luata alone knows how long
I have been here--maybe ten moons, maybe ten moons three times"--it was
the Caspakian equivalent of thirty. "I was young and strong when they
brought me here. Now I am old and very weak. I am cos-ata-lu--that is
why they have not killed me. If I tell them the secret of becoming
cos-ata-lu they will take me out; but how can I tell them that which
Luata alone knows?
"What is cos-ata-lu?" demanded Bradley.
"Food! Food! There is a way out!" mumbled the Galu.
Bradley strode across the floor, seized the man by his shoulders and
shook him.
"Tell me," he cried, "what is cos-ata-lu?"
"Food!" whimpered An-Tak.
Bradley bethought himself. His haversack had not been taken from him.
In it besides his razor and knife were odds and ends of equipment and a
small quantity of dried meat. He tossed a small strip of the latter to
the starving Galu. An-Tak seized upon it and devoured it ravenously.
It instilled new life in the man.
"What is cos-ata-lu?" insisted Bradley again.
An-Tak tried to explain. His narrative was often broken by lapses of
concentration during which he reverted to his plaintive mumbling for