Читать книгу The Ray Cummings MEGAPACK ®: 25 Golden Age Science Fiction and Mystery Tales - Ray Cummings - Страница 33

CHAPTER 31

THE PALACE OF ORLOG

Engrossed with each other the Very Young Man and Aura sailed close up to the water-front of Orlog before they remembered their situation. It was the Very Young Man who first became aware of the danger. Without explanation he suddenly pulled Aura into the bottom of the boat, leaving it to flutter up into the wind unguided.

“They might see us from here,” he said hurriedly. “We must decide what is best for us to do now.”

They were then less than a quarter of a mile from the stone quay that marked the city’s principal landing-place. Nearer to them was a broad, sandy beach behind which, in a long string along the lake shore, lay the city. Its houses were not unlike those of Arite, although most of them were rather smaller and less pretentious. On a rise of ground just beyond the beach, and nearly in front of them, stood an elaborate building that was Targo’s palace.

“We daren’t go much closer,” the Very Young Man said. “They’d recognize us.”

“You they would know for one of the strangers,” said Aura. “But if I should steer and you were hidden no one would notice.”

The Very Young Man realized a difficulty. “We’ve got to be very small when we go into the city.”

“How small would you think?” asked Aura.

The Very Young Man held his hands about a foot apart. “You see, the trouble is, we must be small enough to get around without too much danger of being seen; but if we get too small it would be a terrible walk up there to Targo’s palace.”

“We cannot sail this boat if we are such a size,” Aura declared. “Too large it would be for us to steer.”

“That’s just it, but we can’t go any closer this way.”

Aura thought a moment. “If you lie there,” she indicated the bottom of the boat under a forward seat, “no one can see. And I will steer—there to the beach ahead; me they will not notice. Then at the beach we will take the drug.”

“We’ve got to take a chance,” said the Very Young Man. “Some one may come along and see us getting small.”

They talked it over very carefully for some time. Finally they decided to follow Aura’s plan and run the boat to the beach under her guidance; then to take the drug. There were few people around the lake front at this hour; the beach itself, as far as they could see, was entirely deserted, and the danger of discovery seemed slight. Aura pointed out, however, that once on shore, if their stature were so great as a foot they would be even more conspicuous than when of normal size even allowing for the strangeness of the Very Young Man’s appearance. The Very Young Man made a calculation and reached the conclusion that with a height of six or seven inches they would have to walk about a mile from the landing-place to reach Targo’s palace. They decided to become as near that size as they conveniently could.

When both fully understood what they intended to do, the Very Young Man gave Aura one of the pellets of the drug and lay down in the bow of the boat. Without a word the girl took her seat in the stern and steered for the beach. When they were close inshore Aura signalled her companion and at the same moment both took the drug. Then she left her seat and lay down beside the Very Young Man. The boat, from the momentum it had gained, floated inshore and grounded gently on the beach.

As they lay there, the Very Young Man could see the sides of the boat growing up steadily above their heads. The gunwale was nearly six feet above them before he realized a new danger. Scrambling to his feet he pulled the girl up with him; even when standing upright their heads came below the sides of the vessel.

“We’ve got to get out right now,” the Very Young Man said in an excited whisper. “We’d be too small.” He led the girl hastily into the bow and with a running leap clambered up and sat astride the gunwale. Then, reaching down he pulled Aura up beside him.

In a moment they had dropped overboard up to their shoulders in the water. High overhead loomed the hull of the boat—a large sailing vessel it seemed to them now. They started wading towards shore immediately, but, because they were so rapidly diminishing in size, it was nearly five minutes before they could get there.

Once on shore they lay prone upon the sand, waiting for the drug to cease its action. When, by proper administering of both chemicals, they had reached approximately their predetermined stature, which, in itself, required considerable calculation on the Very Young Man’s part, they stood up near the water’s edge and looked about them.

The beach to them now, with its coarse-grained sand, seemed nearly a quarter of a mile wide; in length it extended as far as they could see in both directions. Beyond the beach, directly in front of them on a hill perhaps a thousand feet above the lake level, and about a mile or more away, stood Targo’s palace. To the Very Young Man it looked far larger than any building he had ever seen.

The boat in which they had landed lay on the water with its bow on the beach beside them. It was now a vessel some two hundred and fifty feet in length, with sides twenty feet high and a mast towering over a hundred feet in the air.

There was no one in sight from where they stood. “Come on, Aura,” said the Very Young Man, and started off across the beach towards the hill.

It was a long walk through the heavy sand to the foot of the hill. When they arrived they found themselves at the beginning of a broad stone roadway—only a path to those of normal Oroid size—that wound back and forth up the hill to the palace. They walked up this road, and as they progressed, saw that it was laid through a grassy lawn that covered the entire hillside—a lawn with gray-blue blades of grass half as high as their bodies.

After walking about ten minutes they came to a short flight of steps. Each step was twice as high as their heads—impossible of ascent—so they made a detour through the grass.

Suddenly Aura clutched the Very Young Man by the arm with a whispered exclamation, and they both dropped to the ground. A man was coming down the roadway; he was just above the steps when they first saw him—a man so tall that, standing beside him, they would have reached hardly above his ankles. The long grass in which they were lying hid them effectually from his sight and he passed them by unnoticed. When he was gone the Very Young Man drew a long breath. “We must watch that,” he said apprehensively. “If any one sees us now it’s all off. We must be extremely careful.”

It took the two adventurers over an hour to get safely up the hill and into the palace. Its main entrance, approached by a long flight of steps, was an impossible means of ingress, but Aura fortunately knew of a smaller door at the side which led into the basement of the building. This door they found slightly ajar. It was open so little, however, that they could not get past, and as they were not strong enough even with their combined efforts, to swing the door open, they were again brought to a halt.

“We’d better get still smaller,” the Very Young Man whispered somewhat nervously. “There’s less danger that way.”

They reduced their size, perhaps one half, and when that was accomplished the crack in the door had widened sufficiently to let them in. Within the building they found themselves in a hallway several hundred feet wide and half a mile or more in length—its ceiling high as the roof of some great auditorium. The Very Young Man looked about in dismay. “Great Scott,” he ejaculated, “this won’t do at all.”

“Many times I have been here,” said Aura. “It looks so very different now, but I think I know the way.”

“That may be,” agreed the Very Young Man dubiously, “but we’d have to walk miles if we stay as small as this.”

A heavy tread sounded far away in the distance. The Very Young Man and Aura shrank back against the wall, close by the door. In a moment a man’s feet and the lower part of his legs came into view. He stopped by the door, pulling it inward. The Very Young Man looked up into the air; a hundred and fifty feet, perhaps, above their heads he saw the man’s face looking out through the doorway.

In a moment another man joined him, coming from outside, and they spoke together for a time. Their roaring voices, coming down from this great height, were nevertheless distinctly audible.

“In the audience room,” Aura whispered, after listening an instant, “Targo’s younger brother talks with his counsellors. Big things they are planning.” The Very Young Man did not answer; the two men continued their brief conversation and parted.

When the Very Young Man and Aura were left alone, he turned to the girl eagerly. “Did they mention Loto? Is he here?”

“Of him they did not speak,” Aura answered. “It is best that we go to the audience room, where they are talking. Then, perhaps, we will know.” The Very Young Man agreed, and they started off.

For nearly half an hour they trudged onward along this seemingly endless hallway. Then again they were confronted with a flight of steps—this time steps that were each more than three times their own height.

“We’ve got to chance it,” said the Very Young Man, and after listening carefully and hearing no one about, they again took the drug, making themselves sufficiently large to ascend these steps to the upper story of the building.

It was nearly an hour before the two intruders, after several narrow escapes from discovery, and by alternating doses of both drugs, succeeded in getting into the room where Targo’s brother and his advisers were in conference.

They entered through the open door—a doorway so wide that a hundred like them could have marched through it abreast. A thousand feet away across the vastness of the room they could see Targo’s brother and ten of his men—sitting on mats upon the floor, talking earnestly. Before them stood a stone bench on which were a number of golden goblets and plates of food.

The adventurers ran swiftly down the length of the room, following its wall. It echoed with their footfalls, but they knew that this sound, so loud to their ears, would be inaudible to the huge figures they were approaching.

“They won’t see us,” whispered the Very Young Man, “let’s get up close.” And in a few moments more they were standing beside one of the figures, sheltered from sight by a corner of the mat upon which the man was sitting. His foot, bent sidewise under him upon the floor, was almost within reach of the Very Young Man’s hand. The fibre thong that fastened its sandal looked like a huge rope thick as the Very Young Man’s ankle, and each of its toes were half as long as his entire body.

Targo’s brother, a younger man than those with him, appeared to be doing most of the talking. He it was beside whom Aura and the Very Young Man were standing.

“You tell me if they mention Loto,” whispered the Very Young Man. Aura nodded and they stood silent, listening. The men all appeared deeply engrossed with what their leader was saying. The Very Young Man, watching his companion’s face, saw an expression of concern and fear upon it. She leaned towards him.

“In Arite, tonight,” she whispered, “Targo is organizing men to attack the palace of the king. Him will they kill—then Targo will be proclaimed leader of all the Oroid nation.”

“We must get back,” the Very Young Man answered in an anxious whisper. “I wish we knew where Loto was; haven’t they mentioned him—or any of us?”

Aura did not reply, and the Very Young Man waited silent. Once one of the men laughed—a laugh that drifted out into the immense distances of the room in great waves of sound. Aura gripped her companion by the arm.

“Then when Targo rules the land, they will send a messenger to my brother. Him they will tell that the drugs must be given to Targo, or Loto will be killed—wait—when they have the drugs,” Aura translated in a swift, tense whisper, “then all of us they will kill.” She shuddered. “And with the drugs they will rule as they desire—for evil.”

“They’ll never get them,” the Very Young Man muttered.

Targo’s brother leaned forward and raised a goblet from the table. The movement of his foot upon the floor made the two eavesdroppers jump aside to avoid being struck.

Again Aura grasped her companion by the arm. “He is saying Loto is upstairs,” she whispered after a moment. “I know where.”

“I knew it,” said the Very Young Man exultingly. “You take us there. Come on—let’s get out of here—we mustn’t waste a minute.”

They started back towards the wall nearest them—some fifty feet away—and following along its edge, ran down towards the doorway through which they had entered the room. They were still perhaps a hundred yards away from it, running swiftly, when there appeared in the doorway the feet and legs of two men who were coming in. The Very Young Man and Aura stopped abruptly, shrinking up against the side of the wall. Then there came a heavy metallic clanging sound; the two men entered the room, closing the door.