The Door to Saturn Read Online Free Page B

disagreement, and accompany me. Of course we could slit each other’s throats or eviscerate each other, since we are both armed. But under the circumstances I think you will see the puerility, not to mention the sheer inutility, of such a proceeding. If we both live we may be of mutual use and assistance, in a strange world whose problems and difficulties, if I mistake not, are worthy of our united powers.”
    Morghi frowned and pondered.
    “Very well,” he said grudgingly, “I consent. But I warn you that matters will have to take their course when we return to Mhu Thulan.”
    “That,” rejoined Eibon, “is a contingency which need not trouble either of us. Shall we start?”

    III
    T he two Hyperboreans had been following a defile that wound away from the lake of fluid metal among hills whose vegetation thickened and grew more various as their height decreased. It was the valley that had been indicated to the sorcerer by the topsy-turvy biped. Morghi, a natural inquisitor in all senses, was plying Eibon with questions.
    “Who, or what, was the singular entity that disappeared in a cavern just before I accosted you?”
    “That was the god Hziulquoigmnzhah.”
    “And who, pray, is this god? I confess that I have never heard of him.”
    “He is the paternal uncle of Zhothaqquah.”
    Morghi was silent, except for a queer sound that might have been either an interrupted sneeze or an exclamation of disgust. But after awhile he asked:
    “And what is this mission of yours?”
    “That will be revealed in due time,” answered Eibon with sententious dignity. “I am not allowed to discuss it at present. I have a message from the god which I must deliver only to the proper persons.”
    Morghi was unwillingly impressed.
    “Well, I suppose you know what you are doing and where you are going. Can you give me any hint as to our destination?”
    “That, too, will be revealed in due time.”
    The hills were lapsing gently to a well-wooded plain whose flora would have been the despair of earthly botanists. Beyond the last hill, Eibon and Morghi came to a narrow road that began abruptly and stretched away in the distance. Eibon took the road without hesitation. Indeed there was little else to do, for the thickets of mineral plants and trees were rapidly becoming impenetrable. They lined the way with serrate branches that were like sheaves of darts and daggers, of sword-blades and needles.
    Eibon and Morghi soon noticed that the road was full of large footprints, all of them circular in form and rimmed about with the marks of protruding claws. However, they did not communicate their misgivings to each other.
    After an hour or two of progression along the yielding ashy thoroughfare, amid the vegetation that was more horrent than ever with knives and caltrops, the travellers began to remember that they were hungry. Morghi, in his haste to arrest Eibon, had not breakfasted; and Eibon, in his natural hurry to evade Morghi, had committed a like omission. They halted by the wayside, and the sorcerer shared his parcel of food and wine with the priest. They ate and drank with frugality, however, since the supply was limited, and the landscape about them was not likely to prove a source of any viands that were suitable for human sustenance.
    With strength and courage revived by this little refection, they continued their journey. They had not gone far when they overtook a remarkable monster that was plainly the originator of the numerous footprints. It was squatting down with its armored haunches toward the travellers, filling the whole road for an indeterminable distance ahead. They could see that it was possessed of a myriad short legs; but they could form no idea of what its head and forequarters were like.
    Eibon and Morghi were much dismayed.
    “Is this another of your ‘gods’?” asked Morghi with attempted irony.
    The sorcerer did not reply. But he realized that he had a reputation to sustain. He went boldly forward and cried