Shadows and shapes appeared in the cloudy whiteness, ghostly and strange. A wavering outline darkened and altered. It was man-shaped, and Raft's gun slipped easily into his hand. Beyond the– figure were other dun traceries, tall columns, and what seemed to be a stream.
The light faded and was gone. With a whispering murmur the barrier dissolved.
The stream became a staircase, dropping steeply away from Raft's feet to the floor of an immense hall empty save for the columns, huger than the Karnak pillars, that marched in diminishing rows into the distance. Empty, save for these, and for the girl who stood facing him, ten feet down the stairway, very lovely, and—with something subtly wrong about her round, soft face.
She moved her hands quickly. Behind Raft a whisper sang softly. He looked back, in time to see the barrier of the light spring into being across the tunnel's mouth.
The road back was closed.
CHAPTER IV.
JANISSA
SHE WAS as he remembered her from that brief glimpse in da Fonseca's lens. There was a prim, gay touch of wickedness about her small mouth. The shadowed eyes were aquamarine, given a subtle slant by the darkness about them. Her hair was—was tiger-striped.
Honey-yellow and dim gold, it was a cloud about her head, so fine that it seemed to fade off into invisibility.
Her garments, blue and gold, clung so closely to her slim body that they seemed like a second skin. At her waist was a wide belt, and now she thrust something into a pocket of it as she smiled at Raft.
With that smile her face changed. It was infinitely appealing, completley tender and welcoming. Her voice, when Raft heard it, was as he expected. A rippling murmur, with that same familiar haunting undertone he had caught in Pereira's voice.
The language was unknown to him, though. Seeing this, the girl switched to stumbling Portuguese, and then, shrugging her slim shoulders, tried an Indio dialect that Raft knew, though he had never heard it spoken in quite this way.
"Don't be frightened," she said. "If I guided you this far, do you think I'll let anything harm you now? Though once I was afraid, when you hesitated at the fork of the road. But you took the right turning."
Raft had bolstered his gun, but his hand still lingered on its cool, reassuring metal. In the same dialect he answered her.
"You guided me here?"
"Of course. Parror does not know; he was too busy getting enough to eat outside." She chuckled. "He hated that. He's a good hunter, but burning meat over open flames—ugh! Parror is not as complacent as you may have thought."
"Parror?" Raft said. "Would that be Pereira?"
"Yes. Now come with me, Brian Raft. You see that I know your name. But there's much that I do not know, and you must tell me those things."
"No," Raft said. He hadn't moved from his position at the top of the staircase. "If you know so much, you know why I came here. Where's Dan Craddock?"
"Oh, he's awake now." She took a tiny lens from her belt and swung it idly. "Parror gave me back my mirror when he returned, since it was no longer needed to keep Craddock controlled. So I was able to see you coming through the jungle. You had looked into my mirror, and after that I could see you. Which was lucky for you, or you'd never have been able to open the gateway to Paititi."
"Take me to Craddock," Raft commanded, feeling very unsure of himself, and therefore acting very sure. "Now."
"All right." The girl's hand touched Raft's arm, urging him down the steps. As they descended the enormous columns seemed to rise above them, the vastness of the huge hall becoming more and more apparent.
"You haven't asked me my name," the low voice said.
"What is it?"
"Janissa," she told him. "And this is Paititi. But you must have known that."
Raft shook his head.
"You may know a lot about the outside world, but it's a one-way circuit. The only place I'd ever heard of Paititi was in a legend."
"We have our legends too."
They were at the foot of the stairs. Janissa guided him across the hall and through an arched opening into a mosaic-walled passage.
There were symbols on those walls, but they struck a note entirely strange to Raft. Once or twice he noticed pictures, but the figures in them seemed to have no resemblance to either Janissa or Pereira—Parror. He. had no time to observe closely.
The girl led him into a smaller hall, up a stairway, and at last into a round room whose walls were softly padded with velvet, cushioned and quilted in patterns like flowers. The floor was padded, too. The whole room was like a great pillowed sofa.
He had a moment to take it all in—the cushiony room, its strangeness and luxury, and the rich, deep colors of the velvet. He saw at one end of the room an oval door of some semi-translucent substance opening upon dim light, and in another wall was an archway, broad and low, which looked out upon moving trees.
There was something rather startling about the trees, but he had no time to look closely. He caught the fragrance of a breeze, though, smelling of flowers and damp jungle lustiness where the sun seldom shines, and realized that he had come out at last upon the surface of the earth somewhere, after the long journey underground.
"Sit down and rest," Janissa said. "You've come far."
Raft shook his head.
"You said you were taking me to Craddock. Well?"
"I cannot do that yet. Parror is with him."
"Good." Raft touched his gun. Janissa merely smiled.
"In Parror's castle—in this land where he has power—you think that will help you?"
"I think so. If it won't, there are other ways." He unslung the rifle from his shoulder and leaned it against a cushioned wall. "I don't know what kind of superman Parror may be, but I'll bet he can't dodge a bullet."
"A bullet? Oh, I see. You are both right and wrong. Your weapon would have been useless against Parror outside, but in Paititi he is more vulnerable."
Raft stared at the strange, lovely, disturbingly different face upturned to him.
"Meaning what?"
"Parror does not know that you are here. So—"
"But Parror does know," said a very soft, smooth voice. Raft whirled, surprise heightening his pulse and making his breath catch. Parror!
He had come soundlessly through the oval door, and Raft realized, with some distantly logical comer of his mind, that Parror must have been much farther ahead than he had thought, for the man had had time to bathe and change from his ragged garments. The black beard was trimmed to no more than a velvety shadow outlining the heavy, but curiously delicate chin.
The garments he wore were thick, soft, gleaming like dull satin, and fitting so perfectly they might have been literally painted upon his body. He was fingering an odd weapon like a silver whip that hung from the broad jeweled belt he wore.
Raft felt suddenly very unsure of himself. This was too different a meeting from the one he had been anticipating. For this was not the jungle. There was, very definitely, something about Parror that made Raft's skin crawl. Wrong—wrong—a racial wrongness he could not define. He had felt it about Janissa, but not with the violence he felt now.
Arrogance clothed Parror like a garment. He was in his own environment. He was regally confident. Raft had an uncomfortable realization of his own awkwardness and crudity and, from the mockery in the velvety black eyes, he knew that Parror shared the thought.
Parror lifted his lip in a fastidious smile.
"You were not needed here," he said, in the Indio dialect. "But perhaps, after all, I can find a use for you. Yes, I think I can."
"We may, Parror," Janissa murmured, and for an instant unsheathed swords seemed to flash between the two.
"Listen, Pereira or whatever you call yourself, we're going to have a talk," Raft said angrily. "Now. It'll be fast talking, too."