The solemn drumbeat never faltered. It was as though the pulse of
the whole world throbbed within it. Kynon turned. The old man began
to tremble. Kynon placed one crown on his wrinkled scalp, and the
tottering creature winced as though in pain, but his face was ecstatic.
Relentlessly, Kynon crowned with the second circlet the head of the
frightened boy.
"Kneel," he said.
They knelt. Standing tall above them, Kynon held the rod in his two
hands, between the crystal crowns.
Light was born in the rod. It was no reflection of the sun. Blue and
brilliant, it flashed along the rod and leaped from it to wake an
answering brilliance in the crowns, so that the old man and the youth
were haloed with a chill, supernal fire.
The drumbeat ceased. The old man cried out. His hands plucked feebly at
his head, then went to his breast and clenched there. Quite suddenly
he fell forward over his knees. A convulsive tremor shook him. Then he
lay still.
The boy swayed and then fell forward also, with a clashing of chains.
The light died out of the crowns. Kynon stood a moment longer, rigid as
a statue, holding the rod which still flickered with blue lightning.
Then that also died.
Kynon lowered the rod. In a ringing voice he cried, "Arise,
Grandfather!"
The boy stirred. Slowly, very slowly, he rose to his feet. Holding out
his hands, he stared at them, and then touched his thighs, and his flat
belly, and the deep curve of his chest.
Up the firm young throat the wondering fingers went, to the smooth
cheeks, to the thick fair hair above the crown. A cry broke from him.
With the perfect accent of the Drylands, the Earth boy cried in
Martian, "I am in the youth's body! I am young again!"
A scream, a wail of ecstasy, burst from the crowd. It swayed like a
great beast, white faces turned upward. The boy fell down and embraced
Kynon's knees.
Eric John Stark found that he himself was trembling slightly. He
glanced at Delgaun and the outlanders. The Valkisian wore a look of
intense satisfaction under his mask of awe. The others were almost as
rapt and open-mouthed as the crowd.
Stark turned his head slightly and looked down at the litter. One
white hand was already drawing the curtains, so that the scarlet silk
appeared to shake with silent laughter.
The serving girl beside it had not moved. Still she looked up at Kynon,
and there was nothing in her eyes but hate.
After that there was bedlam, the rush and trample of the crowd, the
beating of drums, the screaming of pipes, deafening uproar. The crowns
and the crystal rod were wrapped again and taken away. Kynon raised up
the boy and struck off the chains of captivity. He mounted, with the
boy beside him. Delgaun walked before him through the streets, and so
did the outlanders.
The body of the old man was disregarded, except by some of Kynon's
barbarians who wrapped it in a white cloth and took it away.
Kynon of Shun came in triumph to Delgaun's palace. Standing beside
the litter, he gave his hand to the woman, who stepped out and walked
beside him through the bronze door.
The women of Shun are tall and strong, bred to stand beside their men
in war as well as love, and this red-haired daughter of the Drylands
was enough to stop a man's heart with her proud step and her white
shoulders, and her eyes that were the color of smoke. Stark's gaze
followed her from a distance.
Presently in the council room were gathered Delgaun and the outlanders,
Kynon and his bright-haired queen--and no other Martians but those
three.
Kynon sprawled out in the high seat at the head of the table. His face
was beaming. He wiped the sweat off it, and then filled a goblet with
wine, looking around the room with his bright blue eyes.
"Fill up, gentlemen. I'll give you a toast." He lifted the goblet.
"Here's to the secret of the Ramas, and the gift of life!"
Stark put down his goblet, still empty. He stared directly at Kynon.
"You have no secret," said Stark deliberately.
Kynon sat perfectly still, except that, very slowly, he put his own
goblet down. Nobody else moved.
Stark's voice sounded loud in the stillness.
"Furthermore," he said, "that demonstration in the square was a lie
from beginning to end."