Death in a Bowl
Dyta, the sun, climbed his blue ladder and looked down at the city of
Sephar in its mountain fastness. Behind those gray stone walls hummed an
activity found there only five days in every twelve moons.
For today was the first of the Game days. Since early morning the
streets leading to the great amphitheater were packed with an eager
citizenry, pushing and jostling its way toward the arena's several
entrances. Those first to arrive had their choice of seats; consequently
many had huddled beneath heavy cloaks outside the barred gates during
the dark hours, awaiting the moment when they might enter.
It was a colorful throng, every member light-hearted, gay and friendly.
Men and women pushed and tugged at their neighbors--friend and stranger
alike--to keep the milling mass moving. Most of them carried parcels of
food, for the Games lasted each day until the hour of sunset. Whole
family groups were numerous: father, mother, and the brood of children.
Many of the latter were mere infants, watching the swarm of shifting
humanity with wide wondering eyes.
Patrolling the avenues and directing the crowds at the gates were many
priests in white tunics. This was to be their day, as well; for shortly
before the Games got under way, elaborate rites, honoring the God, were
to be held, in which every priest was to take part.
Truly, this was the day of days.
* * * * *
In the great cell beneath Sephar's streets, Tharn, Katon, Vulcar,
Rotark, Brosan, Brutan and Gorlat squatted in a group about a huge
earthen bowl of stewed meat. They, together with the balance of the
prisoners, had been aroused from sleep an hour before sunrise, and had
been given food that their strength and endurance might be equal to the
tasks ahead.
Katon, seated across from Tharn, caught the Cro-Magnard's eye and nodded
significantly.
"For a man who may be dead within a few hours," he said grimly, "you
seem very cheerful."
Tharn grinned. "Would you have me seek out Pryak and beg for my life?"
The others laughed. Brutan put down a bone from which he had gnawed the
meat, and belched with frank satisfaction. "I will show them how a real
man fights!" he declared. "With my bare hands I once slew a leopard!"
Brosan made a derisive sound. "It must have been a very old leopard."
Brutan's complacent expression vanished. "You lie!" he bellowed, glaring
belligerently at his heckler. "It was a great, full-grown--"
"Quiet, you fool!" snapped Katon. "This is no time to start a brawl."
Brutan mumbled something under his breath and went back to his bone.
Rotark wiped his lips with the back of his hand. "How many of us will
see the end of this day?" he asked in doleful tones. "Take Gorlat,
here--so careful not to soil his tunic. It may soak in his own blood
before darkness comes again!"
The blond young man kept his mechanical smile. He said: "Not if they
give me a knife...."
Something in the soft words brought a momentary silence to the group.
What had Vulcar said yesterday about this handsome, graceful youth? "Few
men equal him in handling a knife...."
Katon said, "It will be an hour before the Games actually
get under way. First they must finish the rites honoring the
God-Whose-Name-May-Not-Be-Spoken--a lengthy ritual. Then the guards will
come, select a few of us, give them arms and send them into the arena."
"Somehow," Tharn said thoughtfully, "I wonder if it is wise to wait
until the third day before putting our plan into action. After three
days many of our men will have died in the arena. We shall need every
man we can get."
Katon rubbed his chin, frowning. "True," he admitted. "But to hurry this
thing would be fatal. The guards must be satisfied that everything is
going smoothly before they relax their watchfulness.
"Although we shall lose men," he continued, "I believe many of the
soldiers and citizens of Sephar will join us when the revolt gets under
way. Few, I imagine, regard Pryak with favor; they should welcome a
chance to end his power and make one of their own men king."
Then and there the germ of an idea was implanted in Tharn's mind--an
idea destined to bear fruit in the days ahead.
* * * * *
For the better part of an hour the seven ring-leaders moved about the
chamber, talking with groups of prisoners, discussing various phases of
the plan Tharn had concocted. So confident did the seven seem, that many
a despondent captive was caught up by their infectious spirit and began
to grow impatient for the Games to start that the two days might pass
the sooner.
At last the noise of sandaled feet sounded in the corridor, and a moment
later the door was thrust open.
Five men came in: four well-armed priests wearing white tunics edged in
black; and another, who was as different from the nondescript priests as
Sadu differs from Botu, the jackal.
Head and shoulders above his companions towered this fifth man; his face
was strong and proud, and from either side of a blade-like nose, eyes of
blue fire swept over the crowded room.
Katon nudged the Cro-Magnard. "That tall one is Wotar, director of the
Games. He is no priest; and before Urim died, was one of Sephar's most
powerful nobles. He has been Game director for a long time; and since he
seems still in charge, must be high in Pryak's favor."
Wotar may have heard the whispered words, for he glanced sharply in
Katon's direction. The glittering eyes stopped at the sight of Tharn,
taking in the graceful contours and swelling thews beneath the clear
bronzed skin.
"You," Wotar said quietly, crooking a long forefinger at the cave-man.
At first, Tharn did not fully comprehend; but when two of the priests
laid hold of his arms, his doubt was gone.
"Goodbye, my friend." Katon's voice was sad. "We shall watch for your
return."
"I will be back," Tharn promised from the doorway. Then he was gone, the
great door crashing shut behind him.
* * * * *
Tharn, preceded and followed by guards, was led along the corridor to
where it ended before a narrow door. In response to Wotar's knock it
opened, disclosing a small chamber almost filled with a miscellany of
weapons of every type known to prehistoric man. An attendant stood in
the center of the room, awaiting instructions from the director.
"No weapons," Wotar said briefly. He turned to the cave-man. "You are to
go directly to the arena's center and wait for whatever I send against
you. Make a good fight of it and the crowd will be for you. That can
mean much to you. If you manage to kill your opponent, return here at
once. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
Wotar nodded to the attendant and the arena door was opened, flooding
the room with sunshine. Tharn, blinking in the sudden light, stepped
out on to the white sands of Sephar's Colosseum.
That which met his eyes was something Tharn was never to forget. The
sandy floor was perhaps three hundred feet in length and half as many in
width--a perfectly symmetrical ellipse surrounded by a sheer stone wall
twelve feet in height. Beyond that wall the spectator stands began, tier
upon tier of stone benches sloping up and back for fifty yards to the
last row.
The thousands of seats were filled with a shifting mass of humans, most
of whom had risen as Tharn came into sight.
Never before had the cave-man seen so many people at one time; and the
noise and confusion affected him exactly as it would any jungle denizen.
His first instinctive impulse was to retreat, not because of fright, for
he knew no fear, but because it was strange and unpleasant and, worst of
all, there was that infernal din which only man of all animals can long
endure.
The cave lord halted and half turned as though to withdraw, but the
crowd, believing him to be afraid, set up an ear-splitting clamor of
catcalls, whistlings and raucous shouts that whirled the barbarian about
in sudden anger.
For a long moment he glared at the multi-eyed beast above him; then a
slight sound at his back aroused him to his immediate surroundings.
He wheeled just as a huge figure launched itself at his neck. Before
Tharn could prevent it, strong fingers closed about his throat and the
impact of a solid body sent him staggering, saved from falling only by
superhuman effort.
* * * * *
During the seconds in which all this transpired, Tharn had discovered
what it was that had leaped cat-like upon him. He saw a great hulk of a
man, naked except for a pelt about his loins; a man with muscles bulging
so in arms, legs and shoulders as to constitute a deformity. He was not
quite so tall as Tharn, with an ugly, hairy face, contorted with rage.
With the speed of a striking snake Tharn's hands came up, caught the
wrists at his throat and tore away those choking fingers as though they
were so many strands of cobweb. Then Tharn seized the other before he
could twist free--caught him by thrusting an arm between the crotch of
those gnarled legs while the other hand held to a hairy forearm. Lifting
him thus, Tharn swung the man aloft like a bundle of grass, then flung
him heavily to the sands a dozen paces away.
The onlookers came to their feet with a swelling roar of approval. This
was what they had come to see; and they set up a deafening clamor that
seemed to shake the stands. Tharn never heard them.
Now the dazed enemy was scrambling to his feet. Before he was fully
erect, Tharn was upon him with the silent ferocity of Jalok, the
panther. Grabbing the cringing man by the throat, the cave-man lifted
him bodily from the sands, and holding him at forearm's length, shook
him as a terrier shakes a rodent; shook him until the screaming voice
was stilled as the senses fled and the white figure hung limp and
motionless within Tharn's grasp.
Then, while the crowd watched in thrilled horror, Tharn dropped to one
knee, placed the dead weight of his unconscious foe against his leg and
snapped the man's spine as he might have broken a slender branch.
Rising, Tharn tossed aside the lifeless body and, not deigning to
acknowledge by look or gestures the pandemonium of acclaim, disappeared
through the arms-room door.
* * * * *
On the same morning that the Sepharian Games had opened, a band of fifty
warriors, clothed only in animal skins about their middles, halted on
the outskirts of an impenetrable forest which towered across their path.
At their backs was a broad prairie that had required many days to cross.
The leader of the group, a man of heroic proportions, called together
three of the men and engaged them in earnest conversation. Several times
he gestured toward the mouth of a game trail leading into the jungle;
but the others continued to shake their heads as though unconvinced.
"He would not go that way," one of them was saying. "In that direction
are high hills, and beyond those are great mountains he could not hope
to pass."
"We do not know that he came even this far," said another of the three.
"We lost his trail over two suns ago; he may have changed his path many
times since then."
Their leader silenced them with a wave of his hand. "You have told me
nothing to change my mind. The trail lies ahead; when we can go no
farther will be time enough to turn back and seek in a new direction."
A few minutes later the last of the band had passed from view between
the walls of vegetation lining the narrow path.
* * * * *
Dylara, seated just behind the retaining wall of the arena, watched
Tharn's broad back pass through the little doorway. About her was the
murmur of many voices exclaiming over the exhibition of brute strength
they had just witnessed. Dimly she heard Alurna telling of being rescued
by that same forest god, the three nobles from Ammad serving as
audience.
The cave-girl was trying hard to analyze the tangled emotions resulting
from Tharn's appearance. Something related to the sensation she had
known when he had taken her in his arms after striking Sadu dead, had
come back to her. Why did sight of him make her heart leap with that
peculiar breathless swoop? No one else she had ever known could effect
it so. How handsome, how magnificent he had appeared, standing there on
the white sands, sweeping the crowd with a contemptuous glance before
leaving the arena.
She stole a glance at the handsome profile of Jotan as he listened
politely to Alurna's story. How fortunate she was to have won the love
of this man. In him were qualities all women sought in the men of their
choice. Good-looking, kindly, thoughtful, an honorable position in his
world--what more could any man offer?
Yet only Tharn, untamed man of the caves, could make her heart leap and
thrill--something Jotan might never be able to do.
Last night a priest had come to the great room where she had been taken
upon her return to Sephar. He had brought her to Jotan's quarters, and
she had spent the night there, sharing a room with the princess Alurna,
who had welcomed the opportunity of leaving the palace.
The two girls had little to say to each other. Alurna had regarded the
slave-girl with unmasked loathing; while Dylara, after the first cold
rebuff of her attempt to be friendly, had withdrawn into a shell of
silence.
On the following morning, however, Alurna had surprised Dylara by
displaying an attitude of warm friendliness toward her. Behind this
sudden change was the secret decision of the princess to undermine
Jotan's attempts to win the slave-girl....
Just as the second event was about to get under way, Jotan got up,
excused himself and made his way to the section of the stands reserved
for Pryak and the Council of Priests. There he took a seat beside the
high priest.
Pryak glanced at him with a questioning lift of his eyebrows.
"O Voice of the God," said Jotan, "my men and I have kept our promise to
attend the opening of the Games. We are anxious to start on our journey,
and ask your permission to depart without further loss of time."
Sephar's enthusiastic reception of the Games thus far, had put the king
in high humor.
"As you wish, Jotan," he said, rising and placing his hands on the
other's shoulders. "I ask of the God a safe and uneventful journey for
you and your men. And to Jaltor of Ammad, I send my greetings and
avowals of lasting friendship. Explain to him my reasons for placing
Urim's daughters in his care. He will approve, I am sure."
"All you have asked shall be done," promised Jotan. "And now, Pryak,
king of Sephar and Voice of the God, I bid you farewell."
Turning, Jotan hurried along the stone aisle to his own lodge and
waiting friends. Once there, he raised himself to his full height and
waved both arms above his head.
* * * * *
Directly across the arena a group of some forty or fifty warriors rose
in a body and started toward the nearest exit.
"Come," Jotan said, motioning to the balance of those in his party. "We
start at once for Ammad."
Dylara stood up, casting one last look toward the closed doorway through
which Tharn had passed not long before. He had been her last tie with
the old life. Now she was about to leave all that behind, to go into a
new world at the side of a man she greatly admired. Why was her heart so
heavy? Was it because she would never again see the caves of her
people--the face of her father? Or was it because Tharn was lost to her,
forever? Even should he come through the Games alive, she would be
gone--separated from him by the vast distance between Sephar and the
country Jotan called home.
Jotan had told her something of the long stretches of untracked jungles
and waterless plains between Sephar and Ammad. From others of the
visitors she had heard stories of savage beasts and wild tribes of men
that haunted the mountain trails and forest-cloaked ravines to the
south. And beyond the mountains began a level monotony of grasslands
that reached to still more mountains forming the boundary to Ammad
itself.
The street before the building allocated to the visitors swarmed with
hurrying figures bearing a wide assortment of articles to be bound into
individual packs for easy handling.
Jotan took active charge. Quickly the line of march began to take form.
Broad-shouldered men swung compact bundles to their backs; well-armed
warriors took up their positions; and last of all, strongly made litters
of animal skins stretched between long poles, arrived for use of the two
female members of the party.
Dylara, following the example set by Alurna, seated herself in the exact
center of the sheet of skins as it lay in the street. Two brawny
attendants stepped forward, bent, one at either end of the wooden poles,
and in perfect unison swung the rods to their shoulders.
From his position at the column's forefront, Jotan looked back and waved
a greeting to the two girls. Satisfied that all were in place, he
shouted a command and the safari got under way.
Across the city they marched, through wide-flung gates in the great
walls, and on across the cleared space beyond. Before them rose the
majestic trees and thick matted foliage of the forbidding jungle; and
here, leading directly southward through a tangled maze, was the
beginnings of a well-beaten trail, the first of many such roadways the
little cortege must follow before far-off Ammad could be reached.
Just before the marchers entered the forest, Dylara turned to look back
at Sephar's walls, grim and impressive under the sun's flaming rays.
Still behind those sullen piles of rock was the man she could not
forget. Something deep within her whispered that she had found love only
to lose it; that happiness for her lay in forgetting, forever, the
stalwart young giant who had snatched her from a peaceful, uneventful
life.
Once more she looked back, and abruptly the stone walls wavered and
dimmed as hot tears flooded her eyes....