The city loomed dark before him reaching with stony fingers for the
ever-glittering stars. Of black stone it was, mountainous walls ringing
in the narrow streets and the high gaunt houses. A city of night, city
of darkness. Kery shivered.
Behind the city rose a mountain, a deeper shadow against the frosty
dark of heaven. It was a volcano and from its mouth a red flame
flapped in the keening wind. Sparks and smoke streamed over Ganasth.
There was a hot smell of sulphur in the bitter air. The fire added a
faint blood-like tinge to the cold glitter of moonlight and starlight
on the snowfields.
There was a highway leading through the great main gates and the
glowing-eyed people of the Dark Lands were trafficking along it. Kery
strode directly on his way, through the crowds and ever closer to the
city.
He wore the ordinary fur and leather dress of the country that he had
stolen from an outlying house. The parka hood was drawn low to shadow
his alien features. He went armed, as most men did, sword belted to
his waist, and because he went quietly and steadily nobody paid any
attention to him.
But if he were discovered and the hue and cry went up that would be the
end of his quest.
A dozen sleeps of running and hiding in the wild hills, shivering with
cold and hunger, hunting animals which could see where he was blind,
and ever the men of Ganasth on his trail--it would all go for naught.
He would die and Sathi would be bound to a hateful pledge and Killorn
would in time be the home of strangers.
He must finally have shaken off pursuit, he thought. Ranging through
the hills he had found no sign of the warriors who had scoured them
before. So he had proceeded toward the city on his wild and hopeless
mission.
To find a woman and a weapon in the innermost citadel of a foe whose
language even was unknown to him--truly the gods must be laughing!
He was close to the gates now. They loomed over him like giants, and
the passage through the city wall was a tunnel. Soldiers stood on guard
and Kery lowered his head.
Traffic streamed through. No one gave him any heed. But it was black as
hell in the tunnel and only a Ganasthian could find his way. Blindly
Kery walked ahead, bumping into people, praying that none of the angry
glances he got would unmask his pretense.
When he came out into the street the breath was sobbing in his lungs.
He pushed on down its shadowy length feeling the wind that howled
between the buildings cold on his cheeks.
But where to go now, where to go?
Blindly he struck out toward the heart of town. Most rulers preferred
to live at the center.
The Ganasthi were a silent folk. Men stole past in the gloom, noiseless
save for the thin snow scrunching under their feet. Crowds eddied
dumbly through the great market squares, buying and selling with a
gesture or a whispered syllable. City of half-seen ghosts ... Kery felt
more than half a ghost himself, shade of a madman flitting hopelessly
to the citadel of the king of hell.
He found the place at last, more by blind blundering through the narrow
twisting streets than anything else. Drawing himself into the shadow of
a building across the way he stood looking at it, weighing his chances.
There was a high wall around the palace. He could only see its roof
but it seemed to be set well back. He spied a gate not too far off,
apparently a secondary entrance for it was small and only one sentry
guarded it.
_Now! By all the gods, now!_
For a moment his courage failed him, and he stood sweating and
shivering and licking dry lips. It wasn't fear of death. He had lived
too long with the dark gods as comrade--he had but little hope of
escaping alive from these nighted hills. But he thought of the task
before him, and the immensity of it and the ruin that lay in his
failure, and his heartbeat nearly broke through his ribs.
What, after all, could he hope to do? What was his plan, anyway? He had
come to Ganasth on a wild and hopeless journey, scarcely thinking one
sleep ahead of his death-dogged passage. Only now--now he must reach a
decision, and he couldn't.
With a snarl, Kery started across the street.
* * * * *
No one else was in sight, there was little traffic in this part of
town, but at any moment someone might round either of the corners about
which the way twisted and see what he was doing. He had to be fast.
He walked up to the sentry who gave him a haughty glance. There was
little suspicion in it for what had anyone to fear in the hearth of
Ganasth the mighty?
Kery drew his sword and lunged.
The sentry yelled and brought down his pike. Kery batted the shaft
aside even as he went by it. His sword flashed, stabbing for the other
man's throat. With a dreadful gurgling the guard stumbled and went
clattering to earth.
Now quickly!
Kery took the man's helmet and put it on. His own long locks were fair
enough to pass for Ganasthian at a casual glance, and the visor would
hide his eyes. Shedding his parka he slipped on the blood-stained tunic
and the cloak over that. Taking the pike in hand he went through the
gate.
Someone cried out and feet clattered in the street and along the garden
paths before him. The noise had been heard. Kery looked wildly around
at the pale bushes of fungus that grew here under the moon. He crawled
between the fleshy fronds of the nearest big one and crouched behind it.
Guardsmen ran down the path. The moonlight blinked like cold silver on
their spearheads. Kery wriggled on his stomach through the garden of
fungus, away from the trail but toward the black palace.
Lying under a growth at the edge of a frost-silvered expanse of open
ground he scouted the place he must next attack. The building was long
and rambling, seemingly four stories high, built of polished black
marble. There were two guards in sight, standing warily near a door.
The rest must have run off to investigate the alarm.