From somewhere above came terrible thumps and crashes that shook the room.
"The Charki," murmured Zhenak-Teng. "Soon their rays will reach me, even me…"
"Why have they not reached you already?" Hawkmoon demanded.
"Some of us are more able to resist them. You, plainly, do not suffer from them at all. Others are quickly overcome."
"Can we not escape?" Hawkmoon glanced about the room. "The Sphere we came in…?"
"Too late, too late…"
D'Averc grasped Zhenak-Teng by the shoulder.
"Come man, we can escape if we're quick. You can drive the sphere!"
"I must die with my family-the family I helped destroy." Zhenak-Teng was barely recognisable as the self-contained, civilised man they had spoken to the day before. All the spirit had left him. Already his eyes were glazed and it seemed to Hawkmoon that soon the man would succumb to the strange power of the Charki.
He came to a decision, raised his sword and struck swiftly. The pommel connected with the base of Zhenak-Teng's skull and he collapsed.
"Now, D'Averc," Hawkmoon said grimly. "Let's get him to the sphere. Hurry!"
Coughing as the blue smoke grew thicker, they stumbled from the room and into the passages, carrying Zhenak-Teng's unconscious body between them.
Hawkmoon remembered the way to the place where they had left the sphere and directed D'Averc.
Now the whole passage shook alarmingly until they were forced to stop to keep their balance. Then…
"The wall! It's crumbling!" howled D'Averc, staggering back. "Quickly, Hawkmoon-the other way!"
"We must get to the sphere!" Hawkmoon called back.
"We must go on!"
Now pieces of the ceiling began to fall and a grey, stonelike creature crept through the crack in the wall and into the passage. On the end of the creature was what resembled a sucker such as an octopus would possess, moving like a mouth seeking to kiss them.
Hawkmoon shuddered in horror and stabbed at the thing with his sword. It recoiled; then, pouting a little, as if only a trifle offended by his gesture and willing to make friends, it advanced again.
This time Hawkmoon chopped at it and there was a grunt and a shrill hiss from the other side of the room.
The creature seemed surprised that something was resisting it. Heaving Zhenak-Teng onto his shoulder, Hawkmoon struck another blow at the tentacle, then leapt over it and began to race down the crumbling passage.
"Come on, D'Averc! To the sphere!"
D'Averc skipped over the wounded tentacle and followed. Now the wall gave way altogether, and it revealed a mass of waving arms, a pulsing head and a face that was a parody of human features, grinning a placatory, idiot's grin.
"It wants us to pet it!" D'Averc cried with grim humor as he avoided a reaching tentacle. "Would you hurt its feelings so, Hawkmoon?"
Hawkmoon was busily opening the door that led to the chamber of the sphere. Zhenak-Teng, who lay on the floor near him, was beginning to moan and clutch his head.
Hawkmoon got the door open, hefted Zhenak-Teng onto his shoulder again, and passed through into the chamber where the sphere lay.
No noise came from it now and its colours were muted, but it was opened sufficient to admit them.
Hawkmoon climbed the ladder and dumped ZhenakTeng in the control seat as D'Averc joined him.
"Get this thing moving," he told Zhenak-Teng, "or we'll all be devoured by the Charki you see there…"
He pointed with his sword to the giant thing that was squeezing its way through the door of the chamber.
Several tentacles crept up the sides of the sphere towards them. One touched Zhenak-Teng lightly on the shoulder and he moaned. Hawkmoon yelled and chopped at it. It flopped to the floor. But others were now waving all around him and had fastened on the bronzed man who seemed to accept the touch with complete passivity. Hawkmoon and D'Averc screamed at him to get the sphere moving while they hacked desperately at the dozens of waving limbs.
Hawkmoon reached out with his left hand to grasp the back of Zhenak-Teng's neck. "Close the sphere, Zhenak-Teng! Close the sphere."
With a jerky movement, Zhenak-Teng obeyed, depressing a stud which made the sphere murmur and hum and begin to glow with all kinds of colours.
The tentacles tried to resist the steady motion of the walls as the aperture closed. Three leapt through D'Averc's defense and fastened themselves on ZhenakTeng who groaned and went limp. Again Hawkmoon slashed at the tentacles as the sphere finally closed and began to rise upwards.
One by one the tentacles disappeared as the sphere rose and Hawkmoon sighed in relief. He turned to the bronzed man. "We are free!"
But Zhenak-Teng stared dully ahead of him, his arms limp at his sides.
"It is no good," he said slowly. "It has taken my life…" And he slumped to one side, falling to the floor.
Hawkmoon bent beside him, putting his hand to the man's chest to feel his heartbeat. He shuddered in horror.
"He's cold, D'Averc-incredibly cold!"
"And does he live?" the Frenchman asked.
Hawkmoon shook his head. "He is entirely dead."
The sphere was still rising rapidly and Hawkmoon sprang to the controls, looking at them in despair, not knowing one instrument from another, not daring to touch anything lest they descend again to where the Charki feasted on the life energy of the people of Teng-Kampp.
Suddenly they were in the open air and bounding over the turf. Hawkmoon seated himself in the control seat and took the lever as he had seen Zhenak-Teng take it the day before. Gingerly he pushed it to one side, and had the satisfaction of seeing the sphere begin to roll in that direction.
"I think I can steer it," he told his friend. "But how one stops it or opens it, that I cannot guess!"
"As long as we are leaving those monsters behind, I am not entirely depressed," D'Averc said with a smile.
"Turn the thing to the south, Hawkmoon. At least we will be going in the direction we intended."
Hawkmoon did as D'Averc suggested and for hours they rolled over the flat plain until, at length, a forest came in sight.
"It will be interesting," said D'Averc, when Hawkmoon pointed out the trees to him, "to see how the sphere behaves when it reaches the trees. It was plainly not designed for such terrain."
Chapter Three
THE SAYOU RIVER
THE SPHERE STRUCK the trees with a great sound of snapping wood and tortured metal.
D'Averc and Hawkmoon found themselves flung to the far side of the control chamber, keeping company with the unpleasantly cold corpse of Zhenak-Teng.
Next they were flung upwards, then sideways, and had not the walls of the sphere been well padded, they would have died of broken bones.
At last the sphere rolled to a halt, rocked for a few moments, then suddenly split apart, tumbling Hawkmoon and D'Averc to the ground.
D'Averc groaned. "What an unnecessary experience for one as weak as myself."
Hawkmoon grinned, partly at his friend's drollery, partly in relief.
"Well," he said, "we have escaped more easily than I'd dared hope. Rise up, D'Averc, we must strike onstrike for the South!"
"I think a rest is called for," D'Averc said, stretching and looking up at the green branches of the trees. Sun slanted through them, turning the forest to emerald and gold. There was the sharp scent of pine and the earthier scent of the birch and from a branch above them a squirrel looked down, its bright black eyes sardonic.
Behind them the wreckage of the sphere lay amongst tangled roots and branches. Several small trees had been torn up and others snapped. Hawkmoon realised that their escape had been very lucky indeed. He began to shake, now, with reaction, and understood the sense of D'Averc's words. He sat down on a grassy hillock, averting his eyes from the wreck and the corpse of Zhenak-Teng that could just be seen to one side of the sphere.