“He who wrought this,” the nahkhahrah thought, “must be truly a monster of the Ancient Evil.”
“Monsters of the Ancient Evil are assuredly abroad in these mountains.” Her voice once more enveloped him. “But he who despoiled these, your folk, is not one of them, dear Kohg.”
Recalling his plan to seize the Valley of the Maidens, the nahkhahrah bore about to the northwestward and, presently, he was gliding above the battlemented hills and ridges into a bank of noisome mist. From under the mist shone an eerie, roseate glow. The glow was strongest near the center of the largest vale, and he swept toward it. The air in the valley was warm, almost hot, and as he approached the source of that rosy radiance, the heat increased manyfold.
Something warned him to not come any closer to his objective, so he dove through the mist just shy of a huge fissure in the rocks. It belched forth a steady column of smoke and stench which brought tears to the eyes and acute discomfort to the skin. Waves of unbearable heat bartered at him, and he blinked himself away. The clear menace of that fissure sent a shudder coursing through him.
Rising swiftly, he blinked the future, six moons ahead, and saw a scene of utter desolation. Tumbled rocks surrounded a wide bowl of bubbling, smoking almost-liquid. Nowhere was there any sign of a living creature.
“But… but, Lady? How? Why?” he begged silently.
And he felt himself whisked back to the present. Out of the yawning mouth of the entry cavern filed a long line of pack animals. Some bore strange devices strapped upon their backs, others, panniers which he could sense contained gold and silver, tons of the precious metals. The train was guided by strange-looking men and women in stranger garments. At its head rode three he recognized: the People-of-Powers. And though they spoke in a language he knew he had never heard, he could understand them.
“You’re dead certain the charges will do what we planned?” queried Dr. Erica Arenstein anxiously. “Those that the gas didnt kill, those who only got a whiff of it, are going to be rather angry when they waken and find they’ve been robbed.”
The Ahrmehnee-looking man who rode on her left snorted derisively. “Scant need of fear from that quarter, my dear Erica. Every last horse in their herd is presently roaming about these mountains, if not still running.”
“Don’t be suicidally cocksure, Dr. Corbett,” the woman admonished him. “They are a stubborn race. If need be, they’ll track us on foot, and unless we can get better speed out of these damned mules than we got in bringing them north, we’ll be run down within a day’s ride of here.”
“Not to worry, honey,” assured the other Ahrmehnee, him to whom she had first spoken, now riding a bit behind as the trail had become too narrow for three abreast. He glanced at an odd bracelet on his left wrist, then stated, “The tunnel will be sealed in thirty-two minutes, and before any of them—or many of them, at least—can climb up through those caverns and go down the walls, the main charges will blow. But by that time, well have that mountain yonder between us and the volcano. I calculate that the charges I planted will be just enough to trigger a full-scale eruption.”
The woman, whom the nahkhahrah had known as Sahrah Sahrohyuhn, threw back her head and laughed merrily … and the nahkhahrah thought that never had he heard a more chilling sound.
“There, Kohg Taishyuhn, ride those you would term ‘monsters.’”
“But … but, Lady, they are of You. They possess Powers.”
“Poor mortal Kohg, you have been deceived. Those are not of Me. They are of a cankering sore upon the face of the troubled land. They and their kind honor not Gods but, rather, an abstraction they call ‘Science.’ Long, long ago, when untold millions of the races of man had forsaken the Gods to grovel at the altars of Science, the monstrous creations of that false god almost swept the lands clean of human life. Your people know of this through the tales of ‘The War of the Earth-Gods’ and ‘The Great Catastrophe,’ Kohg.
“Few men survived the holocaust. Even today, the lands are peopled by but a bare shadow of the numbers on whom I once shed My rays. These Ancient Monsters move and breathe only through an unspeakable perversion of the Laws of Nature. And—their future objective is nothing less than the enslavement of all other living creatures. Not many recognize the menace they present, Kohg, and one who does is him they would have had you make war upon, him you call ‘Undying Devil,’ him who calls himself, ‘Milo Morai, High Lord of the Confederation.’ “
“But, the Devil is my enemy,” protested the nahkhahrah. “He drove my people from our rich lands, drove us into these mountains, and now have his folk soaked the earth with Ahrmehnee blood yet again. He is Your enemy, as well, Lady. He worships Your enemy, Sun.”
The Voice remained cool and soothing in and about him. “He is not My enemy. Dear Kohg, I am all true Gods. I but appear to men in the guise they venerate and expect. To you, I am Moon Goddess, to Milo, am I God of Sun and Wind; some call That which is Me Steel or Rain; in the north I am worshiped as Blue Lady; even farther north, in the Black lands, men call upon Me as Ahlah.
“Nor is Milo your enemy, Kohg. For even as all Gods are but Me, the encompassing One, so too are all men of all races brothers, could you poor mortals but see Truth. Milo attacked your people and seized their lands principally to shorten his border and so protect his people from your raiders. It is his aim to once more unite the lands and races upon this continent—not as slaves beneath his heel, such as would those whom you overheard, but as free, happy and prosperous folk.
“Does this man—for, man he is; mortal man born of woman, for all that some name him ‘god’—succeed, does he choose the proper combination of alternatives, as little as seven thousand moons may see this land once again as great and mighty as it was twelve thousand moons agone.
“This Milo is only your enemy because first your forefathers, then you, have made him such. If you and your folk choose to freely join with his Confederation, you will be welcomed and heaped with honors. If you choose to fight on I can see no future for the Ahrmehnee, save as scattered, homeless, wandering remnants of a race. But it is you who must now choose, Kohg.”
The nahkhahrah blinked the future and found it just as the Lady had stated; small family groups of Ahrmehnee, thin and ragged, barely existing in caves and makeshift tents, while being hunted like beasts by the Muhkohee, who had taken over Ahrmehnee valleys and rebuilt the war-shattered villages. He did not stay, for this possible future was too terrible to long contemplate.
And again he went soaring over the moon-bathed mountains, north and east this time. Just beyond his own village, he came to ground. Unseen, he passed between the guards and entered the tent of the brahbehrnuh, finding the young woman alone. Slowly, before her frightened and wondering eyes, he blinked his form visible.
“Listen to me, child.” The brahbehrnuh could see his lips move, shape the words. Nonetheless, they seemed more within her head than upon her ears. “Your home is no more, nor your folk. Those whom we knew as People-of-Powers and of Our Lady were not; rather were they Monsters of the Great and Ancient Evil. They it was who slew your folk and despoiled your treasure, then destroyed your hold by means of the smoking fissure.
“Now, they bear their ill-gotten booty south and west upon the backs of many mules. There be but few of them, child, less than a hundred. Avenging the murders of one’s own folk is a Sacred Duty. At dawn you must arm your Maidens and ride. You will ride with Her blessing.”
The brahbehrnuh was not without real courage even in so eerie a situation as this, and she resolutely gathered that courage. “How … how came you here, without my guards? And how know you, who are only a man, of the Hoofprint of the Goddess’s Steed, that which you called ‘smoking fissure’?”