But a new thought had occurred to her. "If I do, will you promise not
to beat me, or...." She looked at his gun and shivered.
"I promise."
She studied his face, what she could see of it in the darkness, and
then seemed to lose some of her fear.
"I was to stop you. I was to say what I've already said, about being
Malthor's daughter and the rest of it, and then I was to say that he
wanted me to lead you into an ambush while pretending to help you
escape, but that I couldn't do it, and would help you to escape anyhow
because I hated Malthor and the whole business about the Lost Ones.
So you would believe me, and follow me, and I would lead you into the
ambush."
She shook her head and began to cry again, quietly this time, and there
was nothing of the woman about her at all now. She was just a child,
very miserable and afraid. Stark was glad he had branded Malthor.
"But I can't lead you into the ambush. I do hate Malthor, even if he
is my father, because he beats me. And the Lost Ones...." She paused.
"Sometimes I hear them at night, chanting way out there beyond the
mist. It is a very terrible sound."
"It is," said Stark. "I've heard it. Who are the Lost Ones, Zareth?"
"I can't tell you that," said Zareth. "It's forbidden even to speak of
them. And anyway," she finished honestly, "I don't even know. People
disappear, that's all. Not our own people of Shuruun, at least not very
often. But strangers like you--and I'm sure my father goes off into
the swamps to hunt among the tribes there, and I'm sure he comes back
from some of his voyages with nothing in his hold but men from some
captured ship. Why, or what for, I don't know. Except I've heard the
chanting."
"They live out there in the gulf, do they, the Lost Ones?"
"They must. There are many islands there."
"And what of the Lhari, the Lords of Shuruun? Don't they know what's
going on? Or are they part of it?"
She shuddered, and said, "It's not for us to question the Lhari, nor
even to wonder what they do. Those who have are gone from Shuruun,
nobody knows where."
Stark nodded. He was silent for a moment, thinking. Then Zareth's
little hand touched his shoulder.
"Go," she said. "Lose yourself in the swamps. You're strong, and
there's something about you different from other men. You may live to
find your way through."
"No. I have something to do before I leave Shuruun." He took Zareth's
damp fair head between his hands and kissed her on the forehead.
"You're a sweet child, Zareth, and a brave one. Tell Malthor that you
did exactly as he told you, and it was not your fault I wouldn't follow
you."
"He will beat me anyway," said Zareth philosophically, "but perhaps not
quite so hard."
"He'll have no reason to beat you at all, if you tell him the
truth--that I would not go with you because my mind was set on going to
the castle of the Lhari."
* * * * *
There was a long, long silence, while Zareth's eyes widened slowly in
horror, and the rain beat on the thatch, and fog and thunder rolled
together across Shuruun.
"To the castle," she whispered. "Oh, no! Go into the swamps, or let
Malthor take you--but don't go to the castle!" She took hold of his
arm, her fingers biting into his flesh with the urgency of her plea.
"You're a stranger, you don't know.... Please, don't go up there!"
"Why not?" asked Stark. "Are the Lhari demons? Do they devour men?" He
loosened her hands gently. "You'd better go now. Tell your father where
I am, if he wishes to come after me."
Zareth backed away slowly, out into the rain, staring at him as though
she looked at someone standing on the brink of hell, not dead, but
worse than dead. Wonder showed in her face, and through it a great
yearning pity. She tried once to speak, and then shook her head and
turned away, breaking into a run as though she could not endure to look
upon Stark any longer. In a second she was gone.
Stark looked after her for a moment, strangely touched. Then he stepped
out into the rain again, heading upward along the steep path that led
to the castle of the Lords of Shuruun.
The mist was blinding. Stark had to feel his way, and as he climbed
higher, above the level of the town, he was lost in the sullen redness.
A hot wind blew, and each flare of lighting turned the crimson fog
to a hellish purple. The night was full of a vast hissing where the
rain poured into the gulf. He stopped once to hide his gun in a cleft
between the rocks.
At length he stumbled against a carven pillar of black stone and found
the gate that hung from it, a massive thing sheathed in metal. It was
barred, and the pounding of his fists upon it made little sound.
Then he saw the gong, a huge disc of beaten gold beside the gate. Stark
picked up the hammer that lay there, and set the deep voice of the gong
rolling out between the thunder-bolts.
A barred slit opened and a man's eyes looked out at him. Stark dropped
the hammer.
"Open up!" he shouted. "I would speak with the Lhari!"
From within he heard an echo of laughter. Scraps of voices came to him
on the wind, and then more laughter, and then, slowly, the great valves
of the gate creaked open, wide enough only to admit him.
He stepped through, and the gateway shut behind him with a ringing
clash.
He stood in a huge open court. Enclosed within its walls was a village
of thatched huts, with open sheds for cooking, and behind them were
pens for the stabling of beasts, the wingless dragons of the swamps
that can be caught and broken to the goad.
He saw this only in vague glimpses, because of the fog. The men who had
let him in clustered around him, thrusting him forward into the light
that streamed from the huts.
"He would speak with the Lhari!" one of them shouted, to the women and
children who stood in the doorways watching. The words were picked up
and tossed around the court, and a great burst of laughter went up.
Stark eyed them, saying nothing. They were a puzzling breed. The men,
obviously, were soldiers and guards to the Lhari, for they wore the
harness of fighting men. As obviously, these were their wives and
children, all living behind the castle walls and having little to do
with Shuruun.
But it was their racial characteristics that surprised him. They had
interbred with the pale tribes of the Swamp-Edges that had peopled
Shuruun, and there were many with milk-white hair and broad faces. Yet
even these bore an alien stamp. Stark was puzzled, for the race he
would have named was unknown here behind the Mountains of White Cloud,
and almost unknown anywhere on Venus at Sea-level, among the sweltering
marshes and the eternal fogs.
* * * * *
They stared at him even more curiously, remarking on his skin and
his black hair and the unfamiliar modelling of his face. The women
nudged each other and whispered, giggling, and one of them said aloud,
"They'll need a barrel-hoop to collar that neck!"
The guards closed in around him. "Well, if you wish to see the Lhari,
you shall," said the leader, "but first we must make sure of you."
Spear-points ringed him round. Stark made no resistance while they
stripped him of all he had, except for his shorts and sandals. He had
expected that, and it amused him, for there was little enough for them
to take.
"All right," said the leader. "Come on."
The whole village turned out in the rain to escort Stark to the
castle door. There was about them the same ominous interest that the
people of Shuruun had had, with one difference. They knew what was
supposed to happen to him, knew all about it, and were therefore doubly
appreciative of the game.
The great doorway was square and plain, and yet neither crude nor
ungraceful. The castle itself was built of the black stone, each block
perfectly cut and fitted, and the door itself was sheathed in the same
metal as the gate, darkened but not corroded.
The leader of the guard cried out to the warder, "Here is one who would
speak with the Lhari!"