The Time Trap Read Free

and rugs carpeted the floor. Below him, in the center of the chamber, was an altar, low and square, from which a flower of flame blossomed. Gleaming with cold silver radiance, it cast flickering gleams over the two huge beasts that stood beside the altar—two leopards, stretched in sinuous ease.
    One leopard of polished ebony—
    One white as the fabled gates of ivory through which, legends say, evil dreams pour from the Hell-city Dis to torment men’s sleep—
    Two leopards, brilliant green eyes intent on the woman who crouched before the flaming altar, a woman such as Mason had never seen before!
    She was like a silver statue, exquisitely moulded, her slender body half revealed by a lacy silken robe of black. Long unbound hair, moon-silver, drifted about her ivory shoulders. Her face Mason could not see; the woman knelt before the altar, and her voice, murmuring sorcerous music, whispered words in a tongue completely unfamiliar to the man.
    And the pale fires seethed up coldly, whispering. The leopards watched unmoving. The woman’s voice rose to a shrill, high keening.
    “ Ohé, ohé! ” She spoke in the Semite tongue now, and Mason understood the words. “My city and my people and my kingdom! Ruined and fallen, and the beasts of the forest walk in the lonely streets of Corinoor … ohé! ” The woman mourned, her hair falling loose about her face. With a sudden gesture she sprang erect, ripped her robe in tattered shreds from her body. For a moment her nude form was silhouetted against the milky fires, and Mason caught his breath at sight of the woman’s undraped loveliness, the sleek perfection of limbs and torso, lithe as the forms of the watching leopards. Then the woman crouched down in utter self-abasement before the altar, her hands outstretched in appeal.
    “Soon, let it be soon,” her voice sobbed. “Let the Master succeed and bring power again to Corinoor … dead and lovely Corinoor. I, queen and priestess of Corinoor, ask this of you like the meanest slave, naked and abased … Selene, mighty, Selene, turn your face again toward my people!”
    Silence, and the soft whisper of the moon-fires. The leopards were statue-still. Their green eyes dwelt enigmatically on the woman.
    Mason felt a queer chill touch him. Once more the eerie mystery of this haunted city shadowed him. He made a swift involuntary movement; one of the leopards coughed, sprang up on alert feet. The white leopard remained quiet, but the black one stalked forward, eyes intent on Mason. And there was something disturbingly strange about those eyes, the man realized—an intelligence that was more than a beast should possess.
    The woman leaped up in one quick movement, stood staring, red lips parted. Mason felt his throat tighten at sight of her loveliness. Her eyes were deep pools of jet. And, perhaps, she read something of Mason’s undisguised admiration, for the lips curved in a smile, and the low voice called a command.
    “Bokya! To me!”
    The black leopard halted, one paw lifted. Growling softly, it returned to the woman’s side. She made a peremptory gesture.
    Obeying, Mason walked forward down the ramp. His heart was thudding madly as he drew closer to the woman’s pale beauty, and a pulse of passion was beating in his temples. She was Aphrodite, goddess of love and all delight—
    Something he read in her eyes made Mason halt.
    Beauty was there, yes. But there was something else, something coldly alien and dreadful, that seemed to lurk hidden in those cryptic depths, a quality of soullessness that sent a shock of repulsion tingling through Mason. But before he could speak a thudding of racing feet sounded near by.
    In Mason’s apprehensive glance at the door the woman read something of the truth. For a long moment she stood silent; then—
    “In here,” she whispered in Semite. “Make no sound!”
    She bent, touched the altar. The pale fires died. The altar was a bare block of dark stone. At the woman’s urging Mason