IN THE TOILS OF HORROR
WHAT the creature had told her gave Tara of Helium food for thought.She had been taught that every created thing fulfilled some useful purpose, and she tried conscientiously to discover just what was the rightful place of the kaldane in the universal scheme of things.She knew that it must have its place but what that place was it was beyond her to conceive.She had to give it up.They recalled to her mind a little group of people in Helium who had forsworn the pleasures of life in the pursuit of knowledge.They were rather patronizing in their relations with those whom they thought not so intellectual.They considered themselves quite superior.She smiled at recollection of a remark her father had once made concerning them, to the effect that if one of them ever dropped his egotism and broke it it would take a week to fumigate Helium.Her father liked normal people--people who knew too little and people who knew too much were equally a bore.Tara of Helium was like her father in this respect and like him, too, she was both sane and normal.
Outside of her personal danger there was much in this strange world that interested her.The rykors aroused her keenest pity, and vast conjecture.How and from what form had they evolved? She asked Ghek.
"Sing to me again and I will tell you," he said."If Luud would let me have you, you should never die.I should keep you always to sing to me."The girl marvelled at the effect her voice had upon the creature.
Somewhere in that enormous brain there was a chord that was touched by melody.It was the sole link between herself and the brain when detatched from the rykor.When it dominated the rykor it might have other human instincts; but these she dreaded even to think of.After she had sung she waited for Ghek to speak.For a long time he was silent, just looking at her through those awful eyes.
"I wonder," he said presently, "if it might not be pleasant to be of your race.Do you all sing?""Nearly all, a little," she said; "but we do many other interesting and enjoyable things.We dance and play and work and love and sometimes we fight, for we are a race of warriors.""Love!" said the kaldane."I think I know what you mean; but we, fortunately, are above sentiment--when we are detached.But when we dominate the rykor--ah, that is different, and when I hear you sing and look at your beautiful body I know what you mean by love.I could love you."The girl shrank from him."You promised to tell me the origin of the rykor," she reminded him.
"Ages ago," he commenced, "our bodies were larger and our heads smaller.Our legs were very weak and we could not travel fast or far.There was a stupid creature that went upon four legs.It lived in a hole in the ground, to which it brought its food, so we ran our burrows into this hole and ate the food it brought;but it did not bring enough for all--for itself and all the kaldanes that lived upon it, so we had also to go abroad and get food.This was hard work for our weak legs.Then it was that we commenced to ride upon the backs of these primitive rykors.It took many ages, undoubtedly, but at last came the time when the kaldane had found means to guide the rykor, until presently the latter depended entirely upon the superior brain of his master to guide him to food.The brain of the rykor grew smaller as time went on.His ears went and his eyes, for he no longer had use for them--the kaldane saw and heard for him.By similar steps the rykor came to go upon its hind feet that the kaldane might be able to see farther.As the brain shrank, so did the head.The mouth was the only feature of the head that was used and so the mouth alone remains.Members of the red race fell into the hands of our ancestors from time to time.They saw the beauties and the advantages of the form that nature had given the red race over that which the rykor was developing into.By intelligent crossing the present rykor was achieved.He is really solely the product of the super-intelligence of the kaldane--he is our body, to do with as we see fit, just as you do what you see fit with your body, only we have the advantage of possessing an unlimited supply of bodies.Do you not wish that you were a kaldane?"For how long they kept her in the subterranean chamber Tara of Helium did not know.It seemed a very long time.She ate and slept and watched the interminable lines of creatures that passed the entrance to her prison.There was a laden line passing from above carrying food, food, food.In the other line they returned empty handed.When she saw them she knew that it was daylight above.When they did not pass she knew it was night, and that the banths were about devouring the rykors that had been abandoned in the fields the previous day.She commenced to grow pale and thin.
She did not like the food they gave her--it was not suited to her kind--nor would she have eaten overmuch palatable food, for the fear of becoming fat.The idea of plumpness had a new significance here--a horrible significance.
Ghek noted that she was growing thin and white.He spoke to her about it and she told him that she could not thrive thus beneath the ground--that she must have fresh air and sunshine, or she would wither and die.Evidently he carried her words to Luud, since it was not long after that he told her that the king had ordered that she be confined in the tower and to the tower she was taken.She had hoped against hope that this very thing might result from her conversation with Ghek.Even to see the sun again was something, but now there sprang to her breast a hope that she had not dared to nurse before, while she lay in the terrible labyrinth from which she knew she could never have found her way to the outer world; but now there was some slight reason to hope.
