In preparation for my venture out into the Dead City, the savant set about the base of my throat a peculiar collar or yoke of some ropy, translucent stuff. This collar fitted snugly, but not too close to interfere with my breathing.
“Now, attend closely to my words, boy,” he said in measured tones. “I am sending you forth because I am not able to go myself, since the crop of brain crystals in my breeding vats will attain maturity at any hour and will spoil if I am not at hand to insert them into the skulls of my automatons. But do not think to seize upon this errand as a chance for escape! Know that this collar which I have bound about your throat is a length of Live Rope whose reflexes are attuned to the vibratory emanations of this Pylon. I have adjusted the reflexes to a nicety; you may safely venture as far as the trilobate dome, but to go further from the Pylon will cause the collar to tighten about your throat. It will draw tighter with every farasang you journey, and should you go as far as three farasangs from the Pylon, the Live Rope will strangle you to death.”
He eyed me with a severe expression on his usually serene features. “And do not think to cut the Rope and escape, for the reflex patterns will instinctively convulse the Rope to the point of instant strangulation at the touch of a blade. Do you understand?”
I nodded, affecting a dispiritedness which I did not, in fact, feel. For Sarchimus could not, of course, have known it, but to flee from the Pylon at this time was the matter furthest from my thoughts. I would not have dreamed of escaping without having somehow attempted to release the sad-eyed Kalood from his force-prison.
“But, master,” I asked, “how shall I get to the trilobate dome unscathed? For you have told me that the streets and structures of the city are the haunt of terrible monsters, such as the saloogs, and of yet other brutes even more fearsome.”
He produced a small talisman of multilayered crystal and foil, shaped like a locket.
“Fasten this to your wrist or girdle,” he counseled. “It broadcasts an energy wave precisely opposite to the lifeforce of the plant-animal hybrids, and they will instinctively avoid its proximity. Now begone!”
I descended the lower tiers unmenaced, observing that the savant was correct in his assumption that the wrist-talisman held the hybrids at bay. For crawler-vines writhed frantically from my path and lumbering saloogs fled squealing at my approach. The portal of the tower stood ajar, fronting on a street choked with moldering debris all overgrown with peculiar large flowers of a distinctly unwholesome aspect. Their huge, fleshy petals were covered with disklike suckers such as adorn the tentacles of octopuses and there hung about them the stench of rotting offal and decayed meat. Although the cannibal blossoms jerked aside on their segmented stalks as I made my way between them, I did not breathe easily until I had passed them by a wide margin.
The city presented a scene of such decay and desolation as I have never before encountered. Magnificent buildings of superb crystals lay broken and crumbling to every side, their sparkling stones blackened and dead. The streets that wound between the ruined mansions were like a rankly grown jungle, teeming with weird predatory life. The radiations of the crystals had indeed twisted awry the forces of evolution, and to every hand I saw fantastic hybrids of plant and beast such as might have been drawn from the nightmares of Hieronymus Bosch. Birdlike aerial creatures that resembled flying flowers fluttered overhead; trees that bore for fruit mad, glaring eyeballs bent their insane multi-orbed gaze upon me; prowling, hideous, composite monsters of every description avoided my path in terror.
And so I made my way safely down into the central city, glad of the open air again. All about, filling the sky, rose the immense trees of the Green Star World, like arboreal Everests. Shafts of mingled jade and golden sunlight fell through masses of foliage like vast cloud-canopies. Here and there wild zaiphs flashed like winged glittering jewels far above me. Somewhere in this mysterious and unexplored wilderness was the exquisite princess whom I loved; but whether alive or dead, whether safely among her people, or imprisoned among her enemies, I could not say…
Without difficulty I entered the trilobate dome and ransacked its crypts for the energy crystals which would vitalize the metal automatons. I found a bin of those of the appropriate size, and filled the knapsacks. I regained the upper street level again without mishap. The collar of Live Rope was firm about my throat but its stricture caused me no discomfort.
Bending my steps back to the Scarlet Tower, I was suddenly accosted by a stranger. He was a mild-faced, smiling man of amazing obesity, gowned in a robe of woven metal which glistened with iridescent hues like a cloth spun of rainbows. Fat men are rare among the Laonese, whose racial type runs to slenderness and a certain effeminate delicacy. Nevertheless, with his wobbling paunch, triple chins, and plump, smiling cheeks, the stranger was Laonese, as his amber skin and lisping speech denoted. He was very bald, and although he resembled nothing so much as a plump, placid Buddha, with an external smile fixed on his lips, I could not help noticing that this mildness did not extend as far as his eyes, for they were cold and shrewd and calculating, like chips of frozen ink.
“Are you not the boy who serves Sarchimus of the Scarlet Pylon?” he inquired in a soft, wheezing voice. I nodded, recognizing him from the descriptions given me by Zarqa.
“I am; and you would be Hoom of the Many Eyes, the arch-rival of my master,” I said, which must have surprised him, for he blinked in consternation, and then forced a chuckle.
“Such quickness of mind!” he said admiringly. “My dear colleague has acquired a treasure of perspicacity to assist him in his distinguished labors! But I assure you, my young friend, that the esteemed and worthy Sarchimus and I are but professional competitors, and that our rivalry is devoid of personal rancor.”
“That may be,” I said evenly, wishing that my master had seen fit to arm me with some weapon—for I doubted not this obese, mild-faced man was about as harmless as a phuol, and equally as venomous. “But you delay my return to my master’s abode. What is it that you desire of me?”
“To be of service to you, my young friend,” he said smilingly. A certain note of pity entered his tones. “For I am in possession of certain information of the greatest value to you, which bears upon your personal safety.”
“To what do you refer?” I inquired guardedly.
“My poor young friend, you think me your enemy and Sarchimus your friend, but, permit me to reassure you, the facts are otherwise.” He shot me a shrewd, cunning glance, obviously noticing that I was on guard and restive to be gone.
“I know something you do not know,” he said softly.
“The reason why your master rescued you from death, and keeps you about him.”
I was taken aback. How cleverly had Hoom read me! Of course, this was the one vital morsel of information I lacked; and something on which I had often conjectured.
“And what reason is that?” I asked. He smiled, beaming at me benignly.
“Alas, youth, you have fallen into the hands of a ruthless and inhumane master!” he said, shaking his head dolefully. “Your master experiments with a hazardous medicinal called the Elixir of Light, whose side effects are as dangerous as they are unpredictable. Three captives in his Pylon have already reached their untimely demise during his experimentations; now the cruel and egocentric Sarchimus has arrived at a final formulation, which he intends to test upon your helpless person within mere days. The despicable and treacherous Sarchimus encountered you in the veritable knick of time, for he was down to his last human test-subject when he chanced to discover you staked out for death under the stings of the phuol. Should you unfortunately succumb to the unknown effects of the Elixir, he will have left only a certain adventurer from Phaolon the Jewel City, who fell into his clutches some time ago.”