CHAPTER XIII
Vibhishana
After that, the tide of events welled almost too fast for Ramey's comprehension, certainly too fast for his peace of mind. Again—as on the opposite shore, but this time grimly, tightly—he found himself imprisoned by the powerful arms of Videlian soldiers. He was aware of tossing a mute, apologetic glance in Sheng-ti's direction, and of seeing the old Buddhist bow his head, hearing the bonze mutter, "It is the Will of Him Who watches. You could not have done otherwise, my son."
Then the Lady Rakshasi herself, a great, golden panther with eyes glinting triumphantly, was before him.
"We meet again—so soon, my Lord Ramaíya?" she asked mockingly. Then to the soldiers, "Take him to my brother!"
Ravana sat in his council hall, imperiously enthroned on a dais ornamented, Ramey could not help but think dazedly, with all the wealth of the Indies. The Gaanelian lord Sugriva held court in a chamber rich and luxurious, too, but never had its pomp and circumstance compared with such ostentation as this. The richness of Sugriva's throne-room was that of painstaking artistry, hand-wrought by craftsmen whose hearts were in their work, whose hands loved the tools with which they labored. But Ravana's throne-room was one vast blaze of opulence! Rarest gems from the far-flung corners of the globe ... tapestries that seem to flow with restless life ... teakwood and burnished ebony ... sandalwood, mother-of-pearl encrusted ... ivory from tushes so huge one could scarcely conceive the size of the beast which had borne them.
No single man, Ramey Winters knew with swift positiveness, could have gathered together such a display save at the cost of other men's blood! Each gem that lent its hue to the array seemed to cry a horrid tale of death and sorrow; even the fragrance of rare scents wafting through the room seemed coarsened by an underlying reek of blood and death. Thus the great hall in which the Lord Ravana held court.
The Videlian overlord was toying with an oddly shaped instrument as the captives were brought into his presence. A metal arch about three feet long, supported by a cross-brace upon which was mounted a sealed cylinder, also of metal. He laid this aside as Ramey and Sheng-ti were prodded before him, but not so swiftly that Ramey could not recognize it. It was the Bow—the Bow of Rudra! And—Ramey's spirits lifted—the very fact that Ravana toyed with it, studying it curiously, was evidence that so far it had not been charged.
For a fleeting instant the Videlian's eyes shadowed with fear as he identified the pair thrust before him. Then his eyes lighted with an expression of unpleasant amusement.
He said mockingly, "And what have we here? It is a swill-drenched alley-cat—No! By my faith, 'tis a man-god! The one who called himself the Lord Ramaíya!" He touched his forehead in a sign of taunting obeisance. "Welcome, my Lord! We had not expected to greet thee so soon in our humble palace."
Poker, thought Ramey suddenly. The good old Yankee game of bluff. There was a bare possibility—
He took a step forward, his head proud, eyes coldly judicial.
"We have come, Lord Ravana," he declared boldly, "to reclaim our Bow. Now I offer you a last and fair opportunity. Return it and the goddess Sheilacita, and we will leave without exacting vengeance for your impiety."
It was a sandy ... a four-flush sandy with the wrong colored card in the hole ... but it almost worked. The overlord of Lanka stopped smiling; his eyes darted troubledly toward his sister. But the Lady Rakshasi merely laughed, her voice a golden throbbing in the golden room.
"If my Lord Ramaíya be indeed a god," she challenged, "let him prove his omnipotence! Let the Bow return itself to his hand of its accord. Nay, brother. Methinks there be little godlike in this paint-smeared, skulking spy, nor even in his cringing goddess love."
She almost spat the last words. Hearing the spiteful note in her voice, Ramey realized that hell, indeed, has no fury like a woman scorned. The Lady Rakshasi was exacting her vengeance, now, for the moment of ignominy she had experienced when Ramey had rejected her caresses for the gentler love of Sheila Aiken. But he said nothing. There was nothing to say. Ravana, his confidence restored, leaned forward arrogantly.
"And how came these would-be gods hither?"
It was Captain Thalakka who answered. Plainly he did not understand a tithe of what was going on. He said, "They approached our ferry-port on the mainland shore, my Lord, and said they were wayfarers from distant Penang, come to seek employment in thy service. The—" He nodded toward Ramey uncertainly—"the white-skinned one saved thy servant's life."
"So?" Ravana chuckled. It was not a pleasant sound to hear. "We wonder if he can so easily save his own? Well, Earthman—have you anything to say?"
"One thing," said Ramey. "Have a care, Lord Ravana, lest your lust for power destroy you. The Lord Sugriva knows your plans, and he will not stand idly by to watch their accomplishment."
"Thinks he not? And how, pray, does he plan to stay them? You forget, Lord Ramaíya, that I have now the Weapon. The Bow of Rudra, which burns and destroys."
"You hold its empty shell," stated Ramey assuredly. "The gods alone can waken it to power."
"Then," chuckled Ravana, "must I be one of the gods. For already my captains are gathering the ammunition to feed its chamber. Within the space of days, the Bow will carry a full belly. And when that moment comes—then let the Gaanelian weakling, Sugriva, approach Lanka—if he dares!" Ravana nodded to Captain Thalakka. "Very well, Captain. Take these swine away—"
"A moment!" cried Ramey. "Ravana—the Lady Sheilacita! Where is she?"
Again the Videlian laughed. This time there was a note of pleased anticipation in his voice. "Concern yourself not about the woman, my Lord Ramaíya," he gibed. "She awaits my pleasure. Nor shall I keep her waiting long. As soon as these slight matters of state have been cleared up, the Lady Sheilacita will receive the great honor of becoming one of my mates. It is only right and proper, is it not, that the Videlian colony on your earth should some day be peopled with a race born half of earthling blood? You see—" he chuckled coarsely—"I have higher aspirations for the future of your world than has the Lord Sugriva, who would raise to mock manhood the hairy apes of the jungle. Careful, earthman! Dare not my wrath!" His warning halted Ramey's impulsive forward movement. Ravana motioned again to the waiting captain. "I weary of my guests, Captain Thalakka. Take them away. Place them in the dungeons to await my later decision."
He lolled back in his throne, signifying the audience at an end. Captain Thalakka gestured his captives toward the door. As they left the room, there floated high and clear above the nervous hubbub of palace movement, the mocking, bell-like laughter of the Lady Rakshasi....
Ramey had guessed, from its exterior, that the citadel on Lanka was a tremendous place. He had not been able to appraise its full enormity from the outside, though. That he realized as Captain Thalakka led him and the silent Sheng-ti through corridor after lofting corridor, past mighty chambers and halls; down, down and ever down into the entrails of the citadel, into the dungeons festering below.
Ever, as they pressed onward and downward, Ramey had an eye peeled for the likely spot, the strategic moment, that might offer escape. But he found none. Lanka was more than a palace, more than mere bulwarked ramparts of stone. It was an armed camp, seething with a seemingly endless host of Videlian giants, its population swelled to thousands by slaves impressed from the children of earth.
So he resigned himself, as he had once before, to a principle of "watchful waiting." Incarceration was not to be his ultimate fate. The Lord Ravana had made that point clear and emphatic. So however deep he might burrow beneath Lanka now, there would come a time when he would again see day. If he waited, laid his plans for that time....
Curiously enough, it was Captain Thalakka who waxed gloomiest as the trio descended interminable stairs into the black depths of Lanka. The tall, golden-skinned warrior fumed with brooding restlessness, a torment that finally would not be restrained. He turned to Ramey, his eyes haggard.
"Now, Lord Ramaíya," he cried angrily, "am I, Thalakka, Captain of the Torthian Guard, a shamed and sorrowed man! It is iron to my soul that I, who owe you my life, should be the one to lead you to a foul and certain doom!"
Ramey said quietly, "You're just doing your duty, my captain. I don't hold this against you. But—thanks. It's nice to know that all Videlians are not brutes."
"Then I hold it against myself!" groaned the Martian soldier. "As for we of Videlia—" There was a note of bitter savagery in his voice—"Do not judge us all by him who has seized the throne of Lanka. Many of us there are who rue the day he usurped the rulership of this colony, hurling into the dungeons his own brother. Aye, many there are who would gladly live in peace with you earthmen. Had we but the courage and strength to do so—"
Ramey glanced at him swiftly, appraisingly. "Go on, Thalakka!" he encouraged. "What do you mean?"
But the Videlian's jaw had set, as if he feared that already he had said too much. His eyes darted about the gray corridors anxiously, and he whispered, "Speak softly, man of earth. These very walls have wagging tongues. But, hark ye! In the foul pits we now approach you will find another. One named Vibhishana, blood-brother of the Lord Ravana. Gain him to your cause and—who knows what may transpire?
"For you, even though you are my friend and the one to whom I owe my life, I can do little. But were Lord Vibhishana your pledged ally, much might be done on your behalf."
"You mean—?"
"I mean," continued the Videlian hurriedly, "that at the middle watch this night I will come to the dungeon gates. If that third one whose name I have already told is with you, I can pledge that there will be guards in the corridors who will turn a blind eye to your passage. And now—" His tone changed abruptly, became harsh, commanding—"Cease thy noisy bleating, serfs! Thank your stupid earth gods thy lives have been spared—Ah! warder, open your doors and rid me of these earthling scum!"
They had stopped, at last, before a huge bronze door at what must be, thought Ramey, judging from the clammy dampness moisturing the walls, the stale and foetid air, the very bottom of the fortress. And at Captain Thalakka's call, came shuffling to them a gnarled, coarse figure bearing on a great ring the key to the donjon-keep. He squinted at the captives suspiciously.
"Scum indeed, Captain Thalakka! Why sent our leader these earth dogs hither?"
"For safekeeping," answered Thalakka, "until he finds time to decide their fate."
The warder grinned evilly. "Then I shall not have to bother with them long," he hazarded. "Our Lord Ravana is not one to delay his decisions. Well, filth—in with you!" His key grated in the lock; with a scraggly hand he thrust Sheng-ti and Ramey through the portal. "And mind you disturb me not, or I'll come a-visiting with the lash!"
Again he turned the clef, securing the doorway after them. Then, still chuckling, he shuffled away. But Thalakka pressed his lips once to the grill before he, too, disappeared. And the words he whispered were, "Courage! Tonight!"
Being thrust into these dungeons, Ramey discovered, was unlike being imprisoned in the cell-block of a modern—a 20th Century—jail. Here were no neat, ordered individual cells, no runways with pacing guards, no blazing lights, no clean, steel avenues astringent with the odor of disinfectant. When the gate clanged shut behind him, darkness surged in to engulf him in a maw of ebon velvet; his feet slipped on damp masonry, and for a moment a sense of panic fear, instinctive, unreasoning, gripped him.
In that moment he was glad of the presence of Sheng-ti. For nothing could disturb the smooth complaisance of the aged bonze. His hand, upholding Ramey, was warm and serene, his voice reassuring.
"Peace, my son! We are at least alone, and in solitude is strength."
Ramey grinned at him, an invisible grin to an invisible companion. "Thanks, old man," he said. "I guess it's the dark. I went into a tail-spin for a second."
"It is written," said Sheng-ti, "that darkness is naught but the shadow of the gods. Yet, behold! Even now it is not dark. See—in the distance?"
Now that his eyes had accustomed themselves to gloom Ramey saw that, indeed, there was a faint smudge of light before him. By it he recognized that they stood at the threshold of but one of a numberless series of connected chambers; high, vaulted caverns, sturdywalled and windowless, supported by massive columns which might have been hewn from solid rock. Now, completely in possession of himself again, it was Ramey who took the initiative. He gripped his friend's arm, propelling him forward.
"Where there is light," he said, "there must be men. These dungeons are not tenantless. Come on!"
And together they picked their way, on feet rapidly growing more sure, toward the faraway smudge.
As they drew nearer its source, they discovered that the illumination came from guttering candles, and from small bonfires over which, like so many wraiths huddling from the frightful chill of Limbo, hunkered the figures of other prisoners. Many were these, and of all races. Earthmen and Videlians alike were the exiles of this abandoned gaol. They did not mingle together, but in little clans: groups similar in color or in creed, in physiognomy or faith. Although they shared an identical fate, it was evident by the angry glances which passed between one group and another, by the bickering of individual leaders, that there was strife and distrust between these companies.
An example of this smouldering hatred showed itself as Ramey and Sheng-ti considered which of the groups it were best they should approach.
The apparent leader of one tiny clan, a tall, strong-thewed earthman whose race Ramey would have identified tentatively as Coptic, had been muttering to himself audibly. Now he rose to his full height, swift decision seeming to fan to a blaze the long-contained flame within him.
"Like dogs! Like mangy dogs filthy with vermin they cage us in this stinking hole! And do we rebel? Nay! Like whipped curs we bow before the cursed Videlians—when even our food and drink must be shared with the castoffs of their race!"
He glowered across the room to another fire, gathered about which was a tiny knot of Videlians. An elderly man looked to be leader of these, for as the Coptic chieftain let loose his blast, one of the Martian prisoners stirred, would have risen to reply had not the older man stayed him.
Fellow of the Copt's clan muttered hoarse approval of his words; from other groups came rumblings of encouragement. But one prisoner—an Erse, Ramey guessed, or perhaps a Cym—laughed sardonically.
"And what would you do about it, Tauthus of Cush?"
The mighty one's eyes glinted in the firelight like shards of flint. "I would talk less," he bellowed in reply, "and act more! I would regain a vestige of my lost manhood, beginning by wreaking vengeance on those who are of the race of our oppressors. Like this!"
And like a cat leaping, so swiftly that none could move to deter him, he rushed from his own fire to that where gathered the Videlians. With one blow he felled a startled Martian youth jumping up to meet him. Then, gripping the old man in strong hands, he yanked him to his feet. Light shone on a scrap of metal in his hands, a rude knife painstakingly wrought from a forgotten file.
"Thus," he roared, "to all Videlians!" The raw blade descended....
But if all others stood too stunned to move, not so Ramey Winters. A fighting-man himself, he had recognized instantly that there was no-acting in the defi of Tauthus of Cush. The Copt was in deadly earnest. And even as his arm upraised, Ramey thrust forward boldly into the chamber. His voice ringing unexpectedly loud in the echoing vaults, had the explosive vigor of lightning.
"Hold!" he cried. "Strike not, son of Earth!"
As a moment frozen in imperishable pigments, everything stopped! The cry of blood-lusting voices dwindled into shocked silence ... the upraised arm fell not ... the straining figures locked in fantastic poses as if carven so. Then with infinite slowness the head of Tauthus turned. His eyes sought and found his accoster, narrowed menacingly.
"And who are you," he rumbled, "to give commands?"
There was still an automatic beneath Ramey's girdle, a weapon which the Videlians, unsuspecting of its nature, had not taken from him. But he made no move to use it. Instead, he stepped forward still farther that the light might shine upon his features. His face was grave and anxious, his tone beseeching.
"An earthman like yourself, Tauthus of Cush. And a prisoner. But one who realizes that in wanton destruction of each other does not lie the way of our salvation."
"The Videlians," said Tauthus grimly, "are our captors and our foes. This aged stick is a Videlian—"
"—and a prisoner," argued Ramey desperately, "like ourselves. Is that not proof enough he is no ally of the Lord Ravana? Evidence that his foe is our foe? If you kill this man, you do a service to the lord we hate. Can you not hear the laughter of Ravana at learning his prisoners fight amongst themselves, destroy each other?"
And—the battle of words was won! Tauthus of Cush dropped his blade into his belt, released his captive sheepishly and moved away. A man of spirit he was, but he was a man of logic, too. He said thoughtfully, "There is wisdom in what you say, stranger. But, mind you—" And he glared at those who were now circling about them curiously—"let none think cowardice stayed the wrath of Tauthus, or that fellow's guts shall feed the rats!"
"None shall think that, Tauthus," Ramey assured him. "If I read not the future wrongly, the time comes, and it not far removed, when each and every man in this dungeon shall be given the chance to prove his valor."
An eager light flashed in the other man's eyes. He said hoarsely, "What mean you, newcomer?"
"I shall tell you. But first—how many prisoners dwell in these caverns?"
Tauthus shrugged.
"Who knows? Three score, perhaps? Maybe more?"
"Can you gather their group leaders, their captains, for a council?"
The Coptic chieftain nodded. "That I can, and will." To decide, with Tauthus of Cush, was to act. He wheeled away abruptly, began shouting orders. "You ... and you ... and you! Haste into the farthest reaches of the dungeon. Gather here all who dare die that they might live again. Hurry—"
Now the white-haired Videlian, who had stood quietly at Ramey's side throughout this interlude, turned to his protector.
"Man of Earth," he said gravely, "I thank you. Not for myself, because my life is of little importance. But for having quelled an act which might have destroyed us all. Can I repay you in any way? What can I do to help this plan you have?"
"Nothing just now, thanks," said Ramey. "Later, perhaps—Wait a minute! You can help me. Point out which of the Videlians is known as Vibhishana."
The old man smiled sadly.
"That will not be hard, my friend," he said. "For I am—or once was—the Lord Vibhishana."