Then, abruptly, Moljar's nostrils quivered. He leaped to his feet and his black mane matted and curled as his eyes strained upward. "The cloud layers," he said. "Look!"
Each cloud layer was moving rapidly in different directions. "A storm!" cursed Moljar. "The wind and sea will pulp us on the rocks!"
Mahra cowered down, clutching at the floor of the raft. One hand gripped the bone mast of the bat's wing. She reached up the other, and Moljar's broad yellow hand closed over it, and held it in a silent bond.
The sound of the descending storm came from afar. It rose higher and higher, reaching the pitch of a thousand shrieking giants. A colossal comber bore toward them, lifting up, and up. Their eyes followed its curling summit, helpless, bold pygmies. A wall of blue, foaming with white like a mad beast, translucent as they saw it towering up through the swirling vapor. Then it collapsed over them.
Moljar's hand gripped hers. A vise that all the frenzied pounding of the ocean could not break. As the tons of water crushed them down, shattered the raft, hurled it away like chaff, their hands were locked. Their ears rang. Their minds cried out and were smothered. Coughing, blinded, they were absorbed by the sea.
III
The desert tribes of Mars cling to ancient superstitions. When a warrior dies, his body can only go on to Khles. A grotesque land of trial by brute strength by which the victorious can move upward through succeeding plains, and finally into the fairer lands of Perlarh.
So when Moljar's battered consciousness returned somewhat, his cracked lips whispered it gently, with awe. "Khles ... Khles ... Khles...." Then he snapped open his burning eyes.
He was on his side on harsh gravel and grey sand. The sea, calm and glassy again, washed gently at his sandaled feet. He stiffened his aching legs, and a lassitude went through him, like one might imagine upon awakening from death. He raised his right hand and the brilliant, sentient aliveness of the yellow stone caught the filtered Venusian morning, and momentarily blinded him. He shifted his eyes and saw that he still gripped Mahra's hand.