He dropped from girder to girder until he stood in the darkness,
bending and lifting the thing. In his hand the blade made a singing
play, humming vibrantly. The blade was coated with runes, and figures
carved in a delicate frieze in the steel. A craftsman had made that
blade, ornamenting it without weakening it. With a big hand on the
hilt, Flane danced it before him.
The hilt was a dark blue, like a midnight sky. Set inside the
translucent, crystalline stuff were seven tiny globules of light
that glittered eerily. Five of them formed a star at the guard, and
the other two were embedded in the pronged pommel. They made a queer
design, and reminded Flane of a constellation he could see at night
from Klarn.
Saarl whinnied alarm somewhere outside.
Flane sprang for the girders, sword in belt. He went up the twisted
steel, hand over hand, and ran for the opening in the hull, snatching
up the flame-weapon as he ran.
A magniship was coming from the south.
The only known mechanism that did not need the Machine to function was
the magniship. It, too, was a discovery of the ancient genius, Norda.
It utilized the polar magnetism that held the planet in its grip; the
red balls that endlessly circled the rim of the ship drew on that
stream of magnetism for its power, sent it toward the motors deep in
the hull which whirled the propellors.
Flane tightened his hands on the gun and waited, watching through
thin-slitted eyes as the ship altered course, observing the great
wreck. He thought, _with this in my hands, I could destroy that ship_.
The knowledge made him feel like a god.
Saarl nuzzled his back as he stood on the sand, watching men walk
toward him.
"Are you suspicious, too, Saarl?" he whispered. "We are alone, you and
I. The Klarnva ran us out of Klarn, and there are no others that we
know. It is best to be careful."
He threw up a palm, calling out, "Stand where you are. You can come no
closer."
A tall man threw back the hood of his cloak and scowled at him.
"You talk big for a man who dwells in a ruined house."
Flane spat, saying, "This is no house, fool. It is a ship that came
from the sky. I talk big because I am big. I bear death in my palms."
The tall man looked interested. Flane saw him study the gun, then look
toward the prism and the ship twisted around it. The man looked back at
him.
"I would search your house, or ship, or whatever it is."
Flane shook his head.
"Step no closer or the colour that sizzles and eats everything in its
path will come out to sear you."
The thin man beckoned and the men with him shed their black cloaks and
came for Flane with naked swords in their hands. Flane grinned as they
ran toward him. He lifted the gun and aimed it at the cloaks that lay
on the sand.
The violet light came forth from the gun and stole all around the black
cloaks that lay on the sand, and ate them up. It ate up some of the
sand, too.
* * * * *
The men skidded to a halt in the sand, staring; beneath their white
faces was the pallor of fear. Flane said softly, "Go back to your ship
and be grateful to Flane. If I had wanted, I could have aimed the gun
at _you_."
The tall man started; he stared at Flane with his dark eyes, as though
absorbing his every feature.
He said, "Are you Flane in truth? The Flane who fled from Klarn with
Vawdar?"
"I am that Flane."
"And Vawdar? What of him? Did he give you the key to the Machine?"
"Vawdar died. He said the key was lost, which we knew; but he also said
it was not what we think it is, that key."
"I am searching for that key, even now. If I do not find it, the
Darksiders will overrun Moornal. I am overlord of Moornal. My name is
Harth."
A flame leaped inside Flane, for he thought of the girl with hair like
dancing fire, red as the desert sunset. But months of wandering on the
desert made him taciturn and suspicious.
"How do I know this? You may be a _meknik_ for all you can prove. And I
have learned that the _mekniks_ do not approve of me."
Harth chuckled.
"So I have heard. But, about that weapon of yours. I would like to use
it. It would be a wondrous thing against the Darksiders. They would
never capture Moornal if I had that."
"The weapon is mine. Forget it."
"You are of Klarn, man. In this time of need, you must use that weapon
to save your people!"
"I am no Klarnvan. The blood of the space-wanderers is in my veins. I
am son to those who lie in the big ship. I owe loyalty to none but them
and Saarl--and a girl with red hair."
Harth opened his eyes very wide at that. He grinned, and turned to look
at the magniship. He shouted, "Aevlyn!"
Flane backed against Saarl, ready for attack from the ship. But all he
saw there was someone in a white cloak come through a doorway and stand
at the rail, staring over the sands toward them. It was a girl--a girl
with hair as red as the sinking sun, who looked at him and laughed and
waved a white arm.
* * * * *
She was here at last, at arm's length, laughing. The others stayed at
bay, eyeing the flame-gun in the crook of Flane's arm, but the girl
walked toward him, calling out, "Flane! You got away that night!"
He touched her hands with his, gently, and chuckled. "You are real,
then. There were times since then that I thought you something my
brain made up in the fury of battle. Real. You are real."
"Of course, I'm real! And alive, too--though how much longer I'll be
alive, I don't know. Flane, the Darksiders are grown bold. They attack
in the daytime, now. They kill our--my people. No one has learned the
key to the Machine. Without it, the Klarnva will perish."
Flane patted the gun, grinning, "With this, the Darksiders will be no
threat. Just a few blasts of the violet light, and they will run for
shelter."
He told her how he found it. When he concluded, he discovered that the
others had come nearer, listening in amazement. But as they made no
hostile gestures, Flane did not worry. He was once again with Aevlyn.
"You must come on board the ship," she told him, walking toward the
spaceship with him. "You can hold the Darksiders off while the others
continue their search for the key."
Flane showed her around the great vessel, pointing out the machines
that worked through some energy other than the Machine. He dropped into
the hole in the ship and reappeared with an elaborately carved scabbard
into which he slipped the darkly hilted sword.
"What a strangely beautiful weapon," she said when he showed it to her.
They studied the runes engraved on the blade, which told in frieze form
the tale of Norda the genius, of how he and the Klarnva came first to
the planet, of their struggles with the Darksiders, and the erections
of the city-states, and the building of the Machine. With a long
fingernail, Aevlyn traced the outlines of the tiny forms on the blade.
"They stand out from the shaft," she said slowly.
Flane held it to the light that filtered through a cracked window. His
eye went along the keen edge.
"It forms a diamond shape through the middle. If we were to break it
clean, those friezes would form the outer edges of the diamond, and the
two sword-edges, the upper and lower points."
Flane shook his head wonderingly, staring at the blue hilt of the
sword. Glitterings like the sky at night stared back at him, the buried
points of light in the haft winking and twinkling like stars. Like a
beam of silver light, the blade sprang from the star-shaped guard, a
shimmer of deadly steel.
"A sword like this would be famous," he muttered. "People would talk of
it. And yet--and yet I have never heard of any such a sword."
"Nor have I," sighed red Aevlyn.
* * * * *
Harth waited for them outside the spaceship, to walk with them across
the sands toward the magniship. As they went, Flane whistled to Saarl,
and drew his reins under his arm. The _megathon_ trotted daintily at
his heels.
Energy surged in Flane's chest, lifting it; like a great wave elevating
itself in a concave greenness lipped with foam-bubbles, it grew in him.
Here before him was a task: To fight the Darksiders. No longer would
his life be a goalless ramble across desert sands. Instead he had a
people who would be like brothers to him, who was an orphan. He stood
a moment, staring at the monument of his own folk, watching sunlight
dapple the silvern hull of the spaceship.
Then he turned his face to the magniship and went up the ladder. He saw
that Saarl was stabled below decks, and walked with Aevlyn toward the
master-cabin.
Here Harth awaited him with maps and charts.
"I want to show you how bold the Darksiders have become," said the
Klarnvan. "Here is Moornal, southernmost of all the city-states of the
Klarn. Beyond Moornal rise a chain of mountains. In those mountains,
and in the plains beyond them, dwell the Darksiders."
"I have never seen a Darksider," said Flane slowly. "I don't know much
about them."
Harth said bitterly, "Klarn itself is too centralized to be aware of
their threat. But we of Moornal and Yeelya--we know! We rim their
perimeter. Us they raid on their fleet _megathons_, stealing our horses
and our women. With lance and arrow they come, shouting _O jho! O jho!_
which is their warcry."
"They are a nomad race," said Aevlyn, seated on a stool of carved
_yxon_. "They live in tents that collapse to fit the backs of their
pack _megathons_. They can cross miles of country in a day, so that
we never find them in the same spot. Some of their men are master
craftsmen. They make lances and bows that we marvel at; we marvel, too,
at their skill with them."
Harth said, "I have heard it rumored that deep in the Darkside country,
they have cities, patterned after ours. Their spies come and go in
Moornal and Yeelya because we Klarnva aren't suspicious enough to look
for them. They learn much, and quickly. It is said they have imitated
our culture to a great extent."
"Are they like us that they can come and go unnoticed?" asked Flane.
"As alike as _khrees_ in a pod. Usually they are browned by the sun,
but then, so are our hunters and herdsmen." Harth sighed, "In the
olden days, when the Machine functioned, we did not need hunters and
herdsmen. But now--"
Flane thought fleetingly of Vawdar. Now that he was dead, all hope
for the key was lost, unless by chance someone would stumble on the
combination of the lock. But so many had tried, for so many years, that
Flane felt positive this was an improbable chance.
He said, to take his mind off the key, "Do you intend moving against
the Darksiders? Attacking them in their own domain?"
"What else can we do? Should we wait for them to attack, we should
never break their power. They swoop on us in few numbers at many
points. If we are too strong at one point, they flee. But one or two of
their bands always makes a killing."
Flane patted the violet-gun in his hands.
"With this we can make a killing ourselves!"
Over a _zeethis_-wood table, Harth planned his strategy. They would go
over Moornal, displaying banners to tell the people below that they
were visiting Darkside to raise an army. High in the air, the last of
the magniships could survey an endless countryside. At the signs of the
gathered Darksider host, the ship could swing into position, and Flane
could sweep their ranks with his weapon. Then the army would attack.
Flane protested, as a thought came to him, "But must we kill these
Darksiders, if they are as ourselves? Perhaps we could reason with
them, teach them our culture, make them as we are."
Harth was horrified, and said so. But Flane felt a sneaking liking
for the nomads; he himself had been one for uncounted months, on
the desert. Besides, he was not a Klarnvan, and neither were the
Darksiders. Without a race, Flane thought momentarily of adopting the
outsiders as his own.
"We could teach them our knowledge," Flane continued stubbornly. "Their
lances and arrows would make good trading material for them. We need
good arrows and spears for hunting. Our ceramics and cities would be
good bartering stuff. If we could instill in them a love for beauty,
art to decorate their homes--"
"Tents!" sniffed Harth.
"Those rumored cities of theirs," said Flane, "will need ornament.
Besides, were we to unite Klarnva and Darksiders, we might build a race
that would develop its own science, so that the Machine would not be
such a necessity."
Aevlyn let her red-brown eyes survey him tenderly. Her ripe mouth
curved into a smile. She said to Flane, "You want to be the giant of
the prophecy, who comes to unite all on Klarn beneath one banner!"
"I am no giant who carries stars in his hands," said Flane soberly,
"but I try to think of the Darksiders. This was their planet. The
Klarnva took it from them, ages ago. The Darksiders have rights."
Harth growled, "The Darksiders are barbarians. They raid our flocks.
Now they are gathering to destroy all Moornal. Is that just?"
"No," sighed Flane. "We will have to fight them, of course. Still--"
He sighed again, and Aevlyn put her warm hand in his and squeezed it.
Her laughter cheered him, and he grinned at her.
* * * * *
Moornal lay on a great wide plain where tall grasses swayed in the
breeze. Far beyond it, a low-lying range of mountains girdled the
plains like a belt. This was the first trip Flane had ever made in the
air; every magniship in Klarn was long since rusted into uselessness,
for lack of the power to repair the ravages of time. It was an eerie
sensation, looking down on rooftops and streets, and domed temples.
Aevlyn stood with her shoulder warm against his, beside the rail. "That
is the culture the Darksiders would destroy," she said softly. "They
would fling the blanket of their ignorance over it, make it as the
ground for their _megathons_ to race on."
Flane shook his head, eyes a little sad. "That is not what the
Darksiders wish, Aevlyn," he frowned. "Put yourself in their place. Let
us pretend that you and I are Darksiders--say, of twenty-five years
ago. We come through the mountain passes on our _megathons_ and sit
looking at that great city. Remember, this is in the days when the
Machine functions. We see that city lighted by the globular lights
my mother, the Princess Gleya, used to tell me of. We see ships rise
and sail majestically through the air. We see houses built so that
sandstorms cannot wreck them.
"What emotions do we feel? Awe. And jealousy, yes. We want the
security, the happiness, of that city. We do not wish to destroy it. We
would be only too willing to be allowed to come and dwell in it. But
the Klarnva will not have us."
The red-haired girl stared up at Flane, a long-nailed hand brushing
back a lock of her russet hair. Her eyes were wide.
"You are strange, Flane. You can see others, and feel for them, as they
themselves. We Klarnva are not like that."
A bit boastfully, Flane said, "That is because I am not a Klarnvan
myself. I am the son of the space-travellers, whom you saw in that big
ship. I wish I knew what my people were like."
"You almost make me feel sorry for the Darksiders," whispered the girl,
standing close to him.
Flane held her soft and warm in the crook of his arm. With his lips he
caressed her cheeks and mouth, tenderly. He whispered, "The union of a
space-traveller and a Klarnvan might bring forth a new breed of men and
women."
Aevlyn flushed and hid her face in his throat, but her fingertips
stroked his jaw gently, lovingly.
"A new race of men," Flane went on dreamily. "Men who would live with
Darksider and Klarnvan in peace, with food for all, and trade to make
all men wealthy."
"It's a good dream," whispered Aevlyn, "but foolish."
It is foolish, thought Flane, because the races on Klarn are sliding
backwards to barbarism. If only the Machine functioned! Why, if he,
Flane, could make the Machine hum, he could unite the men on Klarn.
They would obey his dictates, or he would refuse them the powers of the
Machine! It was as simple as that.
The shouting of a lookout roused him. With Aevlyn at his side, he went
to stand at the rail, staring across the plains toward Moornal. A man
was on a racing _megathon_, bent low across his back, swooping like a
swallow in flight down into gulches, and up across the level plain.
Once he flung up an arm and waved it at the ship.
A rope was flung to him, and he came up it hand over hand.
Panting, the messenger stood before Harth.
"Word has come from Klarn," he sobbed from weariness. "The _mekniks_
have invited the Darksiders to join them in expelling the _dulars_.
They promise the Darksiders that, for their help, they will aid them to
conquer the other cities of the Klarnva!"
Harth grunted curses, looking at Flane.
Flane patted his weapon and grinned mirthlessly, "We'd better hurry,
Harth. Perhaps we can catch the Darksiders before they unite with the
_mekniks_. If ever they join forces, even this violet fire in my hands
may not be enough to stop them!"