The energy-impregnated crystals whereof the buildings of Sotaspra were constructed more than a million years ago (he told me) fed the mechanisms of the city with an inexhaustible flow of power. But the builders of the city had, in the course of ages, lost all control over the energy crystals, which went wild, their radiations breeding monstrous hybrid creatures which in time destroyed the city and slew the Ancients themselves. Although the crystals are long ages dead, the hybrid predators breed still, for which reason the city is deemed accursed by all civilized races of the World of the Green Star, and only a few daring savants such as my master himself care to venture into the City of Monsters to wrest the secrets of a lost wisdom from the haunt of ravening horror.
Seeing that I had taken no hurt from my experiences, Sarchimus soon left me to my own thoughts. Now I had been doubly warned, but from the experience had come away with valuable information.
I now knew that it would be impossible, or at least very dangerous, for me to attempt to leave the Scarlet Pylon on foot.
And I had learned that my master had some subtle means of keeping unseen watch on all that took place within the precincts of his tower; for it was some system of hidden mirrors or camera eyes which had apprised him of my danger.
I resolved to continue my search, but with greater care than before.
And the very next day I made a gigantic discovery.
Chapter 8
THE WINGED MEN
By this time I had explored all of the apartments within the Scarlet Pylon, save for the very lowermost tiers and the rooms sealed from my access by the sign of the Scarlet Hand.
And I had begun to piece parts of the puzzle together.
There were many small, mysterious things about the design and decoration and furnishings of the Pylon which intrigued me. A peculiar motif ran through many of the mosaics and frescoes and other artifacts, that of strange winged figures of pallid gold. At first I had dismissed this element in the decorations as being merely allegorical; now I was not so sure. For the Winged Men appeared again and again in the sculpture, the design of furniture, and the wall paintings that ran around the upper portions of so many of the suites. And there was that hollow central shaft whose nature and purpose remained an insoluble enigma.
The science magician had told me, casually and in passing, that the peoples who had built the City of Sotaspra had flourished a million years ago. One million years… an enormous span of time, surely; on the planet of my birth, the ancestors of my race first emerged from brutehood a million years ago. Yet here on the World of the Green Star there had dwelt a people capable of tapping the energy-lattice frozen in solid crystal, able to navigate the atmosphere of their planet in magnetic sleds, and to imprison lightning in wands of artificial manufacture.
Could the Ancients whose secret lore Sarchimus studied have been-pre-humans?
Before I could learn further details of this mystery, I must gain entry into those chambers sealed off with the mark of the Scarlet Hand.
And I would only dare that if the science magician him self were to be absent from the Scarlet Pylon for a time. As things worked out, my opportunity came on the day following my adventure in the lower tiers. Purely by chance I happened to be strolling on one of the ornamental belvederes which overlooked the desolate city. A shadow fell over me from above. Looking up, I saw the skysled gliding off through the dim gold-green daylight. The cowled figure of Sarchimus could be seen mounted on the aerial vehicle. Where he was going, or for what purpose, or how long he would be absent—these things I could not know.
But my chance had come.
And I took it!
The laboratorium was of little interest to me. Nor were the sleeping chambers of my master. Yet another red-marked door opened upon a workroom where sheaves of parchment manuscript, scrawled with enigmatic calculations, littered a metal desk. But a further suite opened upon the secret itself l
It was a large, shadowy room with a domed ceiling, the curve of wall and crystal window masked behind heavy drapes.
As I entered a faint sound came to my ears.
I froze motionlessly, listening with taut nerves for a repetition of the slight scraping noise that had come to me. Perhaps it had only been my imagination…
Clasping my glassy knife in one brown fist, I strode forward on silent feet—twitched aside a fold of heavy drapery
The Winged Man stared back at me solemnly.
He was like one of the carved crystal statues magically vitalized; one of the weird figures in the painted frescoes, suddenly brought to life.
Tall and slim he was, his flesh palely golden, his slender torso and inhumanly elongated limbs devoid of hirsute adornment. His head, with its high, tapering skull, was startlingly alien; strange, yet beautiful in a way. He—for the nude figure was unabashedly masculine in gender—had great, sad eyes set under overhanging brows, and a soaring dome of a skull, hairless as a babe. From the center of the brows curving across the skull to the nape of his neck ran a stiff crest of darkly golden feathers. This verticle ruff stood about six inches high.
The eyes were orbs of mystic purple, luminous and liquid, and without whites—strikingly inhuman, yet there was a very human sadness and despondency about them as they stared solemnly into my own.
The most remarkable thing about him was his wings. These were folded back and towered high above his shoulders like the wings of a bat. Bat-like in their construction they were, too, a horny, tough membrane stretched between thin ribs of bone or cartilege. But they were feathered along the terminus of the membrane… and I saw, peering closer, that what I had at first glance mistaken for bird feathers was a kind of serpent scale, overlapping and convex, like human fingernails set in an overlapping series.
I later learned that it was by means of these curious hollow scale-feathers that the Winged Man controlled his flight to an exquisite degree; for the horny feathers permitted him to trim the pitch of his flight for all the world like the ailerons of Terrestrial aircraft.
The gaunt, golden figure sat hunched on a stool in a cage of light. An open cube composed of twelve segmented crystal rods composed the angles of this cube, and from each jewel-like segment a thread of brilliant light connected to another in a geometric web woven of pure radiance.
Something warned me not to permit my fingers to touch that scintillant web. I had extended my hand almost automatically—now, at the voiceless inner warning, I snatched my hand away. The Winged Man regarded me somberly, purple eyes haunted with an unspoken sorrow. A strange thought flashed through me—that the mysterious golden creature had inserted that flash of warning into my very mind.
Even as the notion occurred to me, something in the expression of those purple eyes apprised me of the truth of my assumption.
The Winged Man was telepathic.
On impulse, I strove to communicate with the captive creature. I strove to make my mind blank and receptive, to refrain from all thought, so that the vibrations of another brain might resonate through my own being. And in a moment a cold intelligence spoke within me.
I perceive you to be captive here, even as I, the gaunt, golden creature said mentally. I fumbled with words, uncertain as to method.
Speak aloud, if you wish. I will sense the meaning of your words more easily that way. You will observe that the members of my race, the Kaloodha, lack the auditory organs, the creature telepathed again, gesturing with one long-fingered hand at the sides of his head. I saw that he had no ears and that his skull tapered in an unbroken curve to the point of his long jaw. Oddly enough, this did not in any way seem a deformity; somehow it looked “right.”