THE FACE IN THE ABYSS: Sci-Fi Classic. Abraham Merritt
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ankles, his legs jerked from under him.
“Suarra!” shouted Graydon as he fell. At least, his cry might awaken and warn her. A second shout was choked in mid-utterance. Soames’ bony hands were around his neck.
He reached up, and tried to break the strangling clutch. It gave a little, enough to let him grasp one breath. Instantly he dropped his hold on Soames’ wrists, hooked the fingers of one hand in the corner of the New Englander’s mouth, pulling with all his strength. There was a sputtering curse from Soames, and his hands let go. Graydon tried to spring up, but an arm of the gaunt man slipped over the back of his head and held his neck in the vise of bent elbow against shoulder.
“Knife him, Danc’,” snarled Soames.
Graydon suddenly twisted, bringing the New Englander on top of him. He was barely in time for, as he did so, Dancret struck, his blade just missing Soames. Soames locked his legs around his, trying to jerk him over in range of the little Frenchman. Graydon sank his teeth in the shoulder pressing him. Soames roared with pain and rage; threshed and rolled trying to shake off the grip of Graydon’s jaws. Around them danced Dancret, awaiting a chance to thrust.
There came a bellow from Starrett.
“The llama! It’s running away! The llama!”
Involuntarily, Graydon loosed his teeth. Soames leaped up. Graydon followed on the instant, shoulder lifted to meet the blow he expected from Dancret.
“Look, Soames, look!” the little Frenchman was pointing. “He’s loose! Christ! There he goes—wit’ the gold—wit’ the jewels—”
The moon had gathered strength, and under its flood the white sands were a silver lake in which the hillocks stood like tiny islands. Golden hampers gleaming on its side, the white llama was flitting across that lake of silver, a hundred paces away and headed for the cleft through which they had come.
“Stop it!” shouted Soames, forgetting all else. “After it, Starrett! That way, Danc’! I’ll head it off!”
They ran out over the shining barren. The llama changed its pace, trotted leisurely to one of the mounds, and bounded to its top.
“Close in! We’ve got it,” cried Soames. The three ran to the hillock, on which the white beast stood looking calmly around. They swarmed up the mound from three sides.
As their feet touched the sparse grass a mellow note rang out, one of those elfin horns Graydon had heard chorusing so gayly about Suarra that first day. It was answered by others, close and all about. Again the single note. And then the answering chorus swirled toward the hillock of the llama, hovered over it, and dropped like a shower of winged sounds upon it.
Graydon saw Starrett stagger as though under some blow, then whirl knotted arms as though warding off invisible attack. A moment the big man stood thus, flailing with frantic arms. He cast himself to the ground and rolled down to the sands. The notes of the elfin horns swarmed away from him, to concentrate upon Soames. He had thrown himself face downward on the slope of the mound and was doggedly crawling to the top. He held one arm stiffly, shielding his face.
Shielding his face against what?
All that Graydon could see was the hillock and on it the llama bathed in the moonlight, Starrett at the foot of the mound and Soames now nearly at its crest. Dancret, upon the opposite side, he could not see at all.
The horn notes were ringing in greater volume, scores of them, like the bugles of a fairy hunt. What it was that made those sounds was not visible to him, nor did they cast any shadow in the brilliant moonlight. But he heard a whirring as of hundreds of wings.
Soames had reached the edge of the mound’s flat summit. The llama bent its head, contemplating him. As he scrambled over that edge and thrust out a hand to grasp its bridle, it flicked about, sprang to the opposite side and leaped to the sands.
The clamor of the elfin horns about Soames had never stilled. Graydon watched him wince, strike out, bend his head and guard his eyes as though from a shower of blows. And whatever was that attack of the invisible, it did not daunt him. He leaped across the mound and slid down its side, close behind the llama. As he reached the base, Starrett arose, swaying drunkenly.
The horn notes ceased abruptly, like candles blown out by a sudden blast. Dancret came running around the slope. The three stood arguing, gesticulating. Their clothes were ripped to rags, and as Soames shifted and the moonlight fell full upon him, his face showed streaked with blood.
The llama was walking across the sands, as slowly as though it were tempting them to further pursuit. It was strange how its shape now stood out sharply, and now faded almost to a ghostly tenuity. When it reappeared, it was as if the moonbeams thickened, swirled, wove swiftly, and spun it from themselves. The llama faded—and then grew again upon the warp and woof of the rays like a pattern on an enchanted loom.
Starrett’s hand swept down to his belt. Before he could cover the white beast with his automatic, Soames caught his wrist. He spoke wrathfully, peremptorily. Graydon knew he was warning Starrett of the danger of the pistol crack, urging silence.
The three scattered, Dancret and Starrett to the left and right to flank the llama, Soames approaching it cautiously to keep from frightening it into a run. But as he neared it, the animal broke into a gentle lope and headed for another hillock.
For an instant Graydon thought he saw upon the crest of that mound the figure in motley, red staff raised and pointing at the llama. He looked more intently and decided his eyes had played a trick upon him, for the crest was empty. The llama leaped lightly up to it. As before, Soames and the two Others closed in. They swarmed up the mound.
Instantly the elfin horns rang out—menacingly. The three hesitated, stopped their climbing. Then Starrett slid down, ran back a few paces, raised his pistol and fired. The white llama fell.
“The fool! The damned fool!” groaned Graydon.
The silence that followed the shot was broken by a tempest of the elfin horns. It swept down upon the three. Dancret shrieked, and ran toward the camp, beating the air as he came. Halfway, he dropped and lay still. And Soames and Starrett they, too, were buffeting the air with great blows, ducking and dodging. The elfin horns were now a raging tumult—death creeping into their notes.
Starrett fell to his knees, arose and lurched away. He fell again, not far from Dancret and lay as still as he. And now Soames went down, fighting to the last. The three lay upon the sands, motionless.
Graydon shook himself into action, and leaped forward. He felt a touch upon his shoulder. A tingling numbness ran through his body. With difficulty he turned his head. Behind him was the figure in motley. His red staff it was that had taken from him all power to move, even as it had paralyzed the spider-man and sent him into the jaws of the dinosaurs.
The red staff pointed to the three bodies. Instantly, as at some command, the clamor of the horns lifted from around them, swirled high in air—and stilled. At the top of the hillock the white llama was struggling to its feet. A band of crimson ran across one silvery flank, the mark of Starrett’s bullet. The llama limped down the mound.
As it passed Soames it nosed him. The New Englander’s head lifted. He tried to arise, and fell back. The llama nosed him again. Soames squirmed up on hands and knees; eyes fixed upon the golden panniers, he began to crawl after the beast.
The white llama walked slowly, stiffly. It came to Starrett’s body and touched him as it had Soames. And Starrett’s massive head lifted and he tried to rise, and failing even as had Soames, began like him to crawl behind the animal.
The white llama paused beside Dancret. He stirred, and lurched, and followed it on knees and hands.
Over the moon-soaked sands, back to the camp they trailed—the limping beast with the blood dripping from its wounded side. Behind it the three crawling men, their eyes fixed upon the golden-withed panniers, their mouths gasping, like fish being drawn up to shore.
The llama reached the camp fire and passed on. The crawling men reached the fire and