The Greatest Tales of Lost Worlds & Alternative Universes. Филип Дик
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up ten times twenty of our corials with but two fingers — and these corials of ours —”
“Coria,” said she.
“And these coria of ours are each greater in weight than ten of yours. Yes, and I have seen another with but one blow of his hand raise hell!
“And so I have,” he murmured to me. “And both at Forty=second and Fifth Avenue, N. Y. — U. S. A.”
Yolara considered all this with manifest doubt.
“Hell?” she inquired at last. “I know not the word.”
“Well,” answered O’Keefe. “Say Muria then. In many ways they are, I gather, O heart’s delight, one and the same.”
Now the doubt in the blue eyes was strong indeed. She shook her head.
“None of our men can do THAT!” she answered, at length. “Nor do I think you could, Larree.”
“Oh, no,” said Larry easily. “I never tried to be that strong. I fly,” he added, casually.
The priestess rose to her feet, gazing at him with startled eyes.
“Fly!” she repeated incredulously. “Like a Zitia? A bird?”
Larry nodded — and then seeing the dawning command in her eyes, went on hastily.
“Not with my own wings, Yolara. In a — a corial that moves through — what’s the word for air, Doc — well, through this —” He made a wide gesture up toward the nebulous haze above us. He took a pencil and on a white cloth made a hasty sketch of an airplane. “In a — a corial like this —” She regarded the sketch gravely, thrust a hand down into her girdle and brought forth a keen-bladed poniard; cut Larry’s markings out and placed the fragment carefully aside.
“That I can understand,” she said.
“Remarkably intelligent young woman,” muttered O’Keefe. “Hope I’m not giving anything away — but she had me.”
“But what are your women like, Larree? Are they like me? And how many have loved you?” she whispered.
“In all Ireland and America there is none like you, Yolara,” he answered. “And take that any way you please,” he muttered in English. She took it, it was evident, as it most pleased her.
“Do you have goddesses?” she asked.
“Every woman in Ireland and America, is a goddess”; thus Larry.
“Now that I do not believe.” There was both anger and mockery in her eyes. “I know women, Larree — and if that were so there would be no peace for men.”
“There isn’t!” replied he. The anger died out and she laughed, sweetly, understandingly.
“And which goddess do you worship, Larree?”
“You!” said Larry O’Keefe boldly.
“Larry! Larry!” I whispered. “Be careful. It’s high explosive.”
But the priestess was laughing — little trills of sweet bell notes; and pleasure was in each note.
“You are indeed bold, Larree,” she said, “to offer me your worship. Yet am I pleased by your boldness. Still — Lugur is strong; and you are not of those who — what did you say — have tried. And your wings are not here — Larree!”
Again her laughter rang out. The Irishman flushed; it was touche for Yolara!
“Fear not for me with Lugur,” he said, grimly. “Rather fear for him!”
The laughter died; she looked at him searchingly; a little enigmatic smile about her mouth — so sweet and so cruel.
“Well — we shall see,” she murmured. “You say you battle in your world. With what?”
“Oh, with this and with that,” answered Larry, airily. “We manage —”
“Have you the Keth — I mean that with which I sent Songar into the nothingness?” she asked swiftly.
“See what she’s driving at?” O’Keefe spoke to me, swiftly. “Well I do! But here’s where the O’Keefe lands.
“I said,” he turned to her, “O voice of silver fire, that your spirit is high even as your beauty — and searches out men’s souls as does your loveliness their hearts. And now listen, Yolara, for what I speak is truth”— into his eyes came the far-away gaze; into his voice the Irish softness —“Lo, in my land of Ireland, this many of your life’s length agone — see”— he raised his ten fingers, clenched and unclenched them times twenty —“the mighty men of my race, the Taitha-da-Dainn, could send men out into the nothingness even as do you with the Keth. And this they did by their harpings, and by words spoken — words of power, O Yolara, that have their power still — and by pipings and by slaying sounds.
“There was Cravetheen who played swift flames from his harp, flying flames that ate those they were sent against. And there was Dalua, of Hy Brasil, whose pipes played away from man and beast and all living things their shadows — and at last played them to shadows too, so that wherever Dalua went his shadows that had been men and beast followed like a storm of little rustling leaves; yea, and Bel the Harper, who could make women’s hearts run like wax and men’s hearts flame to ashes and whose harpings could shatter strong cliffs and bow great trees to the sod —”
His eyes were bright, dream-filled; she shrank a little from him, faint pallor under the perfect skin.
“I say to you, Yolara, that these things were and are — in Ireland.” His voice rang strong. “And I have seen men as many as those that are in your great chamber this many times over”— he clenched his hands once more, perhaps a dozen times —“blasted into nothingness before your Keth could even have touched them. Yea — and rocks as mighty as those through which we came lifted up and shattered before the lids could fall over your blue eyes. And this is truth, Yolara — all truth! Stay — have you that little cone of the Keth with which you destroyed Songar?”
She nodded, gazing at him, fascinated, fear and puzzlement contending.
“Then use it.” He took a vase of crystal from the table, placed it on the threshold that led into the garden. “Use it on this — and I will show you.”
“I will use it upon one of the ladala —” she began eagerly.
The exaltation dropped from him; there was a touch of horror in the eyes he turned to her; her own dropped before it.
“It shall be as you say,” she said hurriedly. She drew the shining cone from her breast; levelled it at the vase. The green ray leaped forth, spread over the crystal, but before its action could even be begun, a flash of light shot from O’Keefe’s hand, his automatic spat and the trembling vase flew into fragments. As quickly as he had drawn it, he thrust the pistol back into place and stood there empty handed, looking at her sternly. From the anteroom came shouting, a rush of feet.
Yolara’s face was white, her eyes strained — but her voice was unshaken as she called to the clamouring guards:
“It is nothing — go to your places!”
But when the sound of their return had ceased she stared tensely at the Irishman — then looked again at the shattered vase.
“It is true!” she cried, “but see, the Keth is — alive!”
I followed her pointing finger. Each broken bit of the crystal was vibrating, shaking its particles out into space. Broken it the bullet of Larry’s had — but not released it from the grip of the disintegrating force. The priestess’s face was triumphant.
“But what matters it, O shining urn of beauty — what matters it to the vase that is broken what happens to its fragments?” asked Larry, gravely — and pointedly.
The