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.Evidently Apollo in his previous avatar had tried and failed to conquer this creature—another hero was needed to accept the task and succeed in it.The entrance of the Python's Cave—more precisely, certain features that marked the location of the entrance—were visible from a considerable distance downslope.The Cave itself, according to Jeremy's grafted memory, lay hidden by a large fold of rock until you were almost upon it.But the broad and well-worn paths and the cluster of small buildings nearby left no doubt of where the entrance was.Having caught this tantalizing glimpse of the entrance from a distance on the path, you found that it disappeared again until you were almost on it.The party advanced.Arnobius, too, was perturbed by the fact that their Honeymaker guide had disappeared, but in his role of methodical leader he wasn't about to do anything rash because of that.He gave his orders to his remaining people.Oh, if only he had forty of John's lancers with him! Or even twenty young and angry villagers! He'd seize the mouth of the Cave and hold it until John and the rest of his force arrived.But Jeremy was becoming more and more grimly concerned with Katy's fate.He was determined to disregard the Scholar's orders and go on to the Cave himself, alone.And the Intruder, for his own reasons, concurred with this course of action.Jeremy knew, with certainty and yet with frightening ignorance as to the ultimate source of his knowledge, that this hard whitish rock that stood a mile above the sea had one day been down at the bottom.In the past, the distant past.no, the word distant was inadequate.That ocean rolled on the far side of a time gulf so immense that he was afraid of what might happen to his mind if he was ever able to see it clearly.The whitish rock on which his hand was resting contained innumerable small objects that looked like seashells.Here were remnants of what must have been tiny clam-like ocean-dwelling creatures, now encased within the limestone.His new memory confirmed the identification.There were half a dozen people, a mixture of priests and soldiers, some showing Kalakh's blue and white, standing near the mouth of the Cave.But Jeremy could be sure, before he got any closer, that Katy was not among them.And he knew she wouldn't have gone willingly along the trail past this spot.Even as he approached the Cave, Jeremy remembered something else that had happened during the Intruder's earlier visit, or visits, to this spot.At certain hours of the day and seasons of the year, looking down into the Cave from outside, if the sunlight fell at the right angle, you could still make out the caveman paintings of some animal being hunted and speared.And another scene in the same style, depicting what could hardly be anything but human sacrifice.A small human figure was in the process of being devoured, and the thing that was doing the devouring looked for all the world like an enormous snake.TWENTY-FIVEApollo's memory of the Cave entrance showed it as one detail of a whole landscape, seen as it had been a few months ago, engulfed in war.But since the Sun God's last and fatal visit here, human activity in the vicinity of the Cave of Darkness had taken on a different character.Open warfare in the area had ended.Human powers allied to Hades were in charge but making no effort to keep others out.Lord Kalakh's priests and soldiers were endeavoring, with some success, to encourage pilgrimages.Appearances from as close as a hundred yards were still deceptive.At that distance, neither of Jeremy's eyes could see more of the Cave's entrance than a kind of high, shallow grotto, framed by a fringe of tall, thin trees.What Apollo perceived as a grotto was a rough concavity, not deep in comparison with its height and width, that had been formed by natural forces in a towering steep wall.That wall formed one flank of the upper Mountain, which beyond it went on up for an immense distance.From where Jeremy stood now, the summit was still completely out of sight behind intermediate elevations.The true mouth of the Cave did not become visible until you got much closer, and as Jeremy drew near he saw an enormous hole, ten yards wide, going down into the earth at the base of the grotto.The opening went down almost vertically, so that you could fall into it if you were careless or jump down into it if you tried.These details seemed new to the Intruder's memory; his previous entrance to the Cave must have been accomplished by a different route [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]