Against the Fall of Night Read Online Free PDF Page A

walked slowly into the chamber, until they came face to face with the statue of Yarlan Zey.
    The creator of the great park sat with slightly downcast eyes, as if examining the plans spread across his knees. His face wore that curiously elusive expression that had baffled the world for so many generations. Some had dismissed it as no more than a whim of the artist’s, but to others it seemed that Yarlan Zey was smiling at some secret jest. Now Alvin knew that they had been correct.
    Rorden was standing motionless before the statue, as if seeing it for the first time in his life. Presently he walked back a few yards and began to examine the great flagstones.
    “What are you doing?” asked Alvin.
    “Employing a little logic and a great deal of intuition,” replied Rorden. He refused to say any more, and Alvin resumed his examination of the statue. He was still doing this when a faint sound behind him attracted his attention. Rorden, his face wreathed in smiles, was slowly sinking into the floor. He began to laugh at the boy’s expression.
    “I think I know how to reverse this,” he said as he disappeared. “If I don’t come up immediately, you’ll have to pull me out with a gravity polarizer. But I don’t think it will be necessary.”
    The last words were muffled, and, rushing to the edge of the rectangular pit, Alvin saw that his friend was already many feet below the surface. Even as he watched, the shaft deepened swiftly until Rorden had dwindled to a speck no longer recognizable as a human being. Then, to Alvin’s relief, the far-off rectangle of light began to expand and the pit shortened until Rorden was standing beside him once more.
    For a moment there was a profound silence. Then Rorden smiled and began to speak.
    “Logic,” he said, “can do wonders if it has something to work upon. This building is so simple that it couldn’t conceal anything, and the only possible secret exit must be through the floor. I argued that it would be marked in some way, so I searched until I found a slab that differed from all the rest.”
    Alvin bent down and examined the floor.
    “But it’s just the same as all the others!” he protested.
    Rorden put his hands on the boy’s shoulders and turned him round until he was looking towards the statue. For a moment Alvin stared at it intently. Then he slowly nodded his head.
    “I see,” he whispered. “So
that
is the secret of Yarlan Zey!”
    The eyes of the statue were fixed upon the floor at his feet. There was no mistake. Alvin moved to the next slab, and found that Yarlan Zey was no longer looking towards him.
    “Not one person in a thousand would ever notice that unless they were looking for it,” said Rorden, “and even then, it would mean nothing to them. At first I felt rather foolish myself, standing on that slab and going through different combinations of control thoughts. Luckily the circuits must be fairly tolerant, and the code-thought turned out to be “Alaine of Lyndar.” I tried “Yarlan Zey” at first, but it wouldn’t work, as I might have guessed. Too many people would have operated the machine by accident if that trigger thought had been used.”
    “It sounds very simple,” admitted Alvin, “but I don’t think I would have found it in a thousand years. Is that how the Associators work?”
    Rorden laughed.
    “Perhaps,” he said. “I sometimes reach the answer before they do, but they
always
reach it.” He paused for a moment.
    “We’ll have to leave the shaft open: no one is likely to fall down it.”
    As they sank smoothly into the earth, the rectangle of sky dwindled until it seemed very small and far away. The shaft was lit by a phosphorescence that was part of the walls, and seemed to be at least a thousand feet deep. The walls were perfectly smooth and gave no indication of the machinery that had lowered them.
    The doorway at the bottom of the shaft opened automatically as they stepped towards it. A few paces took them through the