DARK DESTINY
By DWIGHT V. SWAIN
The Blue Warrior had journeyed far across
the void in his search for power; but he found
death along with it--in the eyes of a goddess!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
March 1952
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
_Naked, still as death, the veiled woman-goddess men called Xaymar
rested on a gold-draped dais within the great, glowing, crystal globe._
_Xaymar, queen of storms. Ruler of rain and wind and lightning,
empress of all the surging forces that spread their tumult across the
sky. Sainted monster, evil savior. Old as time, and young as folly.
Born of woman, damned of men, wise with dark wisdom gone astray._
_Xaymar, passionate goddess. A word, a myth, a fading picture in
forgotten books. A phantasm rising out of these ghostly, gutted cities,
these ruins dead a thousand years._
_Yet here she lay in this deep-sunk vault, nude save for the short,
jeweled veil that masked the top half of her face. Her body still
gleamed like a supple ivory statue, a vision of sleek, ripe-curved
perfection. Rippling waves of jet-black hair framed the pale, veiled
oval of her face in a darkly radiant nimbus. A faint rose glow touched
lips and breasts. It seemed almost as if she could have been sleeping
here mere hours only, instead of eons; as if she were still alive and
vibrant ... all woman; all terrible, voluptuous promise...._
* * * * *
The _Shamon_ priest was bent with age, his face a deep-seamed net
of wrinkles. The short cloak of his order, vivid with a hundred
contrasting shades of blue, covered his thin shoulders, and a _toloid_
tablet emblazoned with a stylized representation of a lightning bolt,
Xaymar's emblem, hung suspended over his bony chest.
He said: "I want you to kill a woman."
Across the table, the blue warrior called Haral sat very still. He did
not speak.
The old _Shamon_ hurried on: "They say the same, all those to whom I've
spoken--that you alone, of all the warriors here on Ulna, would dare
to go against the raider Sark. The rest are brave until they hear his
name; then, quickly, they sing another song. But you--" He hesitated,
fumbling, and peered uncertainly at Haral out of rheumy, fading eyes.
"Tell me, blue one, is it true that you went alone to Eros and slew the
tyrant lord Querroon because he'd dared to put a price upon your head?
And that then you defied the Federation to try to hang you, and slashed
your way through the whole Federation fleet with your single ship?"
"It's true."
"You see--?" the oldster cried in quavering triumph. "You see it,
_Sha_ Haral? You are a warrior worthy of the name! In you there's iron
instead of meal. That is why I come to you to kill this woman--"
"A woman--?" Haral repeated dully. He swirled the fiery _kabat_ in his
glass. "Why should I kill a woman?"
"Because I'll pay you well," the _Shamon_ priest croaked eagerly. Coins
clinked onto the table. "Here, look! Two hundred _samori_, _Sha_ Haral!
So much for such a simple task--enough to send you out again from Ulna,
to put you once more on the road to wealth and power, ambition...."
* * * * *
Broodingly, Haral stared down into the _kabat's_ green, too-potent
depths. Of a sudden he was acutely conscious of the smoke and stench
and jarring sound that eddied through the shadows of this filthy,
frowsy deadfall that passed as a cafe. '_Wealth and power, ambition?_'
He laughed aloud, knowing as he did it that his tongue had grown too
thick with _kabat_. This was the road down which ambition led--the road
to stinking drinking dives, and dreary nights and drearier days on an
outlaw world called Ulna. The road to blood and valor, a warrior's
name--and proposals of woman-murder.
Ambition? Two hundred _samori_-worth of ambition! Bitterly, he laughed
again, deep in his throat. There were other, better things to call it:
greed; thirst for blood; a cursed, insatiate lust for power.
The old priest gripped his arm. "Three hundred, then! Three hundred
_samori_, _Sha_ Haral!"
Somberly, the blue man stared off into the crowd and smoke and shadows.
It dawned on him that already new faces had sifted in; new forms, all
arrogance and swagger.
The forms and faces of _Gar_ Sark's raiders.
"Three hundred _samori_? Three hundred--to challenge _Gar_ Sark and all
his crew, as well as murder?" He smiled a thin, bleak, mirthless smile
and shook his head. "No, old man. What you want is a madman, not a
warrior."
"Four hundred--four hundred _samori_ for a single blow!" In his
eagerness the priest was slavering. "No? Five, then, _Sha_ Haral! Five
hundred, all for you. I have no more."
For the first time, Haral looked full at the _Shamon_. "Why do you want
her dead?" he challenged. He brought his fist down with a heavy thud
upon the table. "Why? That's what I want to know! Who is she? What has
she done that calls for killing?"
"Why--?" Sweat came to the ancient's face. Uneasily, he shifted.
"She--she--Sark is a monster, and his men have seized her for
tomorrow's games in the arena. She'll die in agony at their hands. I--I
cannot bring myself to let her suffer--"
"So you'd hire me to kill her instead?" Haral laughed harshly. "I hear
your words, old man--"
"My name is Namboina."
"--Namboina, I hear your words. But I'll rot on your _vidal_ planetoid
before I believe them. Too many other _Shamon_ have died on Ulna for
you to worry about one more." He drained his glass and slammed it down.
"No. Find someone else to do your killing. I like to know the facts
before I murder."
* * * * *
The sweat stood out on the priest's forehead in great beads now. With
shaking fingers, he wiped it away. "I--I see I must tell you all,
_Sha_ Haral. The--the woman is Kyla, a virgin priestess to our goddess
Xaymar. Her life, her body, are consecrated to the goddess. She is not
for mortal men. But Sark and his raiders care nothing for our Xaymar.
In their blood-lust and madness they would defile even her priestess,
Kyla. But it cannot be! Better that Kyla die--" He broke off, stared at
Haral. "I, Namboina, am high priest to Xaymar. It is my duty to save
Kyla from shame, our goddess from defilement--"
Haral said: "You lie in your teeth, Namboina! I've heard enough of
your thrice-plagued Xaymar to know that she's called the passionate
goddess--and her priestesses pattern themselves upon her! If there's a
virgin still among them, it's news to the raider fleets that comb these
warrens in search of women."
"No, no--! Not Kyla!" The _Shamon's_ loose mouth worked. His face was a
mask of desperation. "She is a votary, consecrated. She is not as the
others--"
Haral shoved back his chair; surged to his feet. "I've had enough
of your lies, old man!" he slashed. "Sing someone else your song of
murder!"
Namboina's quavering voice rose, thin with fury: "A curse on you,
alien! A curse on all your outland breed that have made a cesspool out
of Ulna--"
But now a new voice cut him short, thundering through the shadows:
"This is the one we want! The old one, the priest they call Namboina!"
Haral spun about.
A dozen fighting men from Sark's raider crews were coming towards him
and Namboina. Spread in a menacing arc, weapons out and ready, they
closed in like cold-eyed, deadly shadows.
Haral fell back a step, till he stood with his back against the wall.
Big-eyed with fear, Namboina slumped in his seat, as if trying to hide
behind the table.
It came to Haral that a hush had fallen over the _kabat_ dive. The
raucous voices had faded into silence. The rattle of glasses was
suddenly stilled.
Then a glowering Martian who seemed to be in charge of the raider gang
snapped orders: "Yes. This is the one. Bring him along!"
A Thorian's tentacle lashed out to grip Namboina and drag him bodily
from his chair.
Now a _Pervod_ jerked his scaly head towards Haral. "What of this one
here? They were together."
The Martian pivoted for a brief, disdainful glance at the blue man.
"That _kabat_-soaked scum?" And then: "But bring him, too. We'll take
no chances."
Almost as if in intentional added insult, he turned away and sheathed
his ray-gun.
* * * * *
A hot, tempestuous tide of anger swirled up within the warrior. But he
did not move; he did not speak.
A second Martian caught his arm. "Come along, you _zanat_, before we
stave in your ugly head!"
For an instant, in spite of himself, Haral's arm went rigid. Then,
thin-lipped, he sucked in air, and fell in beside the quaking, shaking
priest.
One of the raiders laughed contemptuously and shoved the pair of them
ahead still faster.
They reached the narrow doorway that led out to the street. Then, while
their prisoners paused, two of the raiders stepped outside.
A knot of tension drew tight in the pit of Haral's stomach. He let his
shoulders slump, and slouched, half-turning.
Namboina stumbled on through the door.
A _Pervod_ pushed the blue man forward.
With studied care, Haral, too, stumbled. He caught the handle of the
open door as if to keep himself from falling.
Then, like lightning, he was turning, kicking. The _Pervod_ crashed
backward with a howl of anguish.
Haral leaped through the doorway, out into the street, slamming the
heavy portal shut behind him. He caught a glimpse of the two crewmen
there--startled, whirling.
But Namboina was between Haral and the raiders. Savagely, the blue man
threw himself against the priest and sent him crashing into the nearest
crewman.
The second of the raiders was a one-eyed, barrel-chested _Malya_. He
leaped back, cat-fast, whipping up his ray-gun.
But Haral dived in beneath its shaft. His shoulder drove deep into the
_Malya's_ midriff, hammering the dark raider down. Clutching for the
ray-gun, he tore it out of the other's hand.
In the same instant, he heard Namboina cry out in panic.
By instinct, pure and simple, he dropped flat on his belly. By
instinct, too, he fired the ray-gun--straight into the face of the
second raider, free now and charging down upon him.
The raider dropped dead in his tracks.
Haral pivoted, just as the door to the _kabat_-dive jerked open. Again
he triggered the weapon.
The charge caught the Martian in charge of the party square in the
belly. The others, behind him, sprang back inside, out of the way.
* * * * *
The narrow street echoed with Haral's wild, reckless laughter. Lurching
to his feet, he stood there swaying for a moment, looking this way and
that for old Namboina.
But the _Shamon_ had disappeared as if by magic, and from within the
_kabat-dive_ came sounds that spoke of preparations for another sally.
Whirling. Haral raced full-tilt for the nearest alley.
When he stopped again, he was half a mile and a hundred worlds
away, lost in the tangled maze of passageways that wound through the
crumbling heart of the native town. His legs were shaking, his lungs
afire, and the _kabat_-sickness swirled through him in agonizing,
nauseous waves. Choking and retching, he slumped exhausted in a murky
entryway.
Then that, too, passed, and he lay silent and unmoving in the darkness.
But now another sickness was upon him, the sickness that led him to
seek surcease in _kabat_; the sickness that came with the thoughts he
could not push out of his brain.
Where would it end, this madness that ever drove him on? What prize
lay in power, that he must waste his life away searching, groping,
striving for it? Why could he not live and love and die like other men,
unplagued by the fierce surge of insane ambition that still pursued
him--even here, even now?
_Even here, even now._ That was the acid that gnawed his vitals. What
had it brought him, all his striving? He'd carved a crimson course
across half a solar system, till that very system itself disowned him.
He'd drenched the warrior worlds in blood to no avail.
And the road ended here.
Was this, then, his destiny--to hide here, rotting, beyond the reach of
the Federation, till at last the _kabat_ took its toll? Must he sink
lower and then still lower into the slime of this ugly outlaw world of
Ulna, harassed at will by such scum as Sark?
But at least, there'd be no woman-murder. Not yet; not for a while.
Even five hundred _samori_ could not drag him down that far.
A new spasm of fury shook him, and he cursed Namboina aloud with the
vilest epithets a dozen tongues could offer.
But the inner sickness still lingered with him. Bitterly, he stumbled
to his feet, wondering in the same instant what had led the _Shamon_
priest to lie--why he had really sought to have the woman called Kyla
killed.
It was then he felt the weight in his side pocket.
Dully, he fumbled to find what it might be; then, puzzled, pulled it
out into the open.
But it was only a bag ... a worn, somehow familiar bag.
A bag heavy with five hundred glittering _samori_....
CHAPTER II
He rode out at high noon astride the great, blue-scaled Mercurian
_hwalon_ dragon that in itself struck terror into lesser men. The
wars of the void had burned his own skin blue with searing krypton
radiation, and long years of battle service had dulled the polish of
the heavy copronium armor that he wore.
Few knew his name, nor whence he came. He'd buried himself too deep for
that. But then, they did not need to know, for those were unimportant
things in this brutal, brawling world of Ulna, where death walked so
close on every hand.
It was a world of dangerous men, this Ulna; an outlaw world, tumultuous
haven for the hunter and the hunted. The scum of the spaceways had
gathered here, dregs of the void--rabble quick to anger, quick to kill.
_Pervods_ of Venus brushed shoulders with Earthmen. _Chonyas_ and
_Malyas_ stalked among strange mutants, weird life-forms drawn from a
dozen far-flung planets.
Yet none came forth to challenge Haral. For those who eyed and measured
him gave special attention to the slender, deadly, light-lance that was
his weapon. Then, wordless, almost too quickly, they turned away.
So now he rode the filth-choked streets of this slattern town that
served as Ulna's spaceport. And as he rode, beneath the blazing yellow
sky, he smiled his thin, bleak, mirthless smile, and wondered how the
motley mob that thronged these warrens would look if they realized his
real mission.
Then, at last, he came to the plaza and _Gar_ Sark.
Sark, the renegade; Sark, the raider. Sark, who had looted Bandjaran.
Sark, the butcher, with the blood of all Horla on his hands. Sark. A
sinister figure, at best. At worst, a monster to strike terror across
the void.
Ulna was his today, for no creature dared to stand against him. His
ships had blazoned the purple night with streaks of scarlet flame as
they ramped; and his crews too had turned the town scarlet with their
violence, till even the other lawless ones gathered here were cowed to
sullen silence.
This morning, the raiders had seized this ragged, unkempt tract that
passed as a central park--that they might enjoy their own savage brand
of sport, the rumor went.
'Sport?' Haral smiled his mirthless smile again. It was a good excuse,
and Sark's own crews might even believe it. But for Sark himself,
unless the day had come when tigers changed their stripes, grim
business was mixed in with the pleasure. That was Sark's way; he made
no move that did not offer possibilities of profit.
But how? The blue man frowned; then shrugged and urged the _hwalon_ on.
It was enough that Sark was here; that the _Shamon_ priest, Namboina,
had made his murderous proposal. Something was in the wind. He'd have
to bide his time and trust to luck for further details.
* * * * *
A shout went up, even as Haral reached the outskirts of the milling
crowd that had gathered in the plaza--a shout and, through it, the
scream of a soul gone mad with pain.
The blue man pressed the _hwalon_ forward, trusting to the difference
the armor made in his appearance to protect him from recognition by
the members of last night's searching party.
The crowd of town rabble and raider crewmen gave way before him,
parting under the menace of the _hwalon's_ claws and collar and horrid,
hook-beaked head.
Sark's crews had set up an arena of sorts, with seats for their chiefs
along one side. In front of the seats a crude ring was fenced in with
posts and thin, resilient duraloid cable.
Within the ring, they had an Ulno--one of the grotesque, two-headed
primitives that were this planetoid's dull-witted subject people.
And there, too, stood one of the scarlet coleoptera, the giant thinking
beetles that were Ulna's plague.
Now, as Haral reached the front of the crowd, the coleopteron stalked
forward, towards the Ulno. Hideous and deadly, it stood nearly three
feet tall at the thorax. Its protuberant multi-faceted eyes glittered
evilly. Mandibles clacking, the misshapen head moved from side to side
in short, menacing arcs.
The crowd roared its blood-lust, its tension.
Revulsion touched Haral. But he gave the sadistic show no heed beyond
it. Bleakly, he looked across the ring, to Sark himself.
Sark: a smirking, bulbous, obscene thing; half humanoid, half
reptilian. _Gar_ of the space-raiders, king of killers. He sat in his
famed Uranian riding-chair like some mad, monstrous potentate upon a
throne. Eyes murder-bright beneath their reptilian lids, gross rolls
of fat aquiver, he leaned far forward, watching the bloody battle
unfold before him.
Here, looking at the raider chief for the first time, a wave of
incredulous loathing, disillusion, rose up within Haral. Was this gross
slug the best the warrior worlds could offer? Could a creature as soft
and slack as this wield the power that had shaken half the void?
The bitter ashes of his own thwarted drive for empire ate at the blue
man. The world swam with a crimson haze of hate and fury.
Then that mood passed, and Haral noticed other things.
For the raider's fat-rimmed eyes were never still, and the lights
that gleamed deep in them told of craft and savage cunning. There was
a brain behind those eyes--a brain so lightning-fast and wary that
against it mere physical strength alone meant nothing. That was how he
ruled this pack; that was why none lived to challenge.
And now, as he watched, Haral observed another thing: though the
webbed fingers of Sark's left hand splayed out along one tree-like
leg, kneading and clenching as if he were at one with the coleopteron,
thirsting for the Ulno's very life, his right hand never moved from a
switch set in the chair-arm.
* * * * *
Narrow-eyed, the blue man shifted for a better view. As best he could
see, a cable led from the switch down to what appeared to be a bulky,
black, cymosynthesizer box slung beneath the seat.
Frowning, Haral pondered. Almost unconsciously, he caressed his
light-lance.
Then a new shout from the crowd drew his attention back to the arena.
In the ring, the wild-eyed, shaking Ulno was retreating before the
giant beetle. One of his four hands already was shredded beyond all
recognition. Blood gushed from a wound in another arm, slashed open to
the bone. His two heads turned jerkily this way and that, desperately
seeking some avenue of escape, some sign of mercy.
But no sign came. No path appeared.
The beetle poised. The point of its dagger-like antenna dropped a
fraction lower.
With a shrill cry, the Ulno darted along the interlinked cables that
bounded the arena in a last frantic effort to escape.
The coleopteron lunged. Beetle and primitive crashed together in wild,
paroxysmic conflict.
Then, suddenly, the Ulno was reeling, falling. Again, his awful scream
of pain and terror rent the air.
Like great, saw-toothed pincers, the coleopteron's mandibles stabbed
in. The Ulno's cry cut off in bubbling death.
The crowd shrieked savage exaltation.
Once more, contempt, revulsion, gripped Haral. Thin-lipped, he worked
his way around the ring towards Sark.
Laughter--ghoulish, obscene--rocked the raider chief. His rolls of fat
shook. Tears of sheer sadistic glee spilled down his puffy cheeks.
But he still kept his hand on the switch set in the arm of the
riding-chair.
Bleak, watchful, Haral brought the _hwalon_ to a halt in the lee of the
wall nearest the arena. With the casualness of long habit, he surveyed
the crowd, the ground, the disposition of Sark's forces.
In the same instant, he caught himself wondering whether Sark would
laugh as loud by the time this day was done.
Or whether either he or Sark would live to laugh.
He smiled wryly.
But now, for the time, the raider's mirth had passed. A sudden air of
suppressed tension came into his manner. His fleshy hand came up in a
curt, peremptory gesture.
Instantly, two leering reptilian _Pervods_ from his crews dragged
forward another victim.
But this time their prey was no quaking Ulno.
Instead, they held a woman.
A taut, furious excitement surged up within Haral. He sucked in air;
leaned forward, gripping the _hwalon's_ saddle hard between his knees.
Sark gestured. The _Pervods_ dragged their prisoner to him.
* * * * *
She was young. Haral saw now; young, and slim, and incredibly lovely.
Hair like spun gold hung to her waist--the silken blonde hair of the
_Shamon_, the race that had ruled Ulna in the days before the renegades
of a dozen worlds poured in from across the void to make the planetoid
a blood-drenched, anarchistic madhouse.
But more than her face or body, it was her garb that held the blue man.
For she wore the blue cloak of Xaymar's order, and against her high,
proud breasts hung the shining _toloid_ metal tablet that signified her
consecration.
Once more, the gross monster that was _Gar_ Sark leaned forward. He
spoke to the girl in a gentle, beguiling voice that struck a clashing
paradox with the fiend's own soul that dwelt within him: "They call you
Kyla, do they not?" He touched the tablet that rested upon her breasts.
A webbed finger traced the lightning-bolt symbol emblazoned on it.
"Kyla, virgin priestess to the veiled woman-goddess Xaymar, the one
your people call the queen of storms...."
The blue man could see the tremor that rippled through the girl at
Sark's grisly touch. But she did not quail. When she spoke, her voice
was steady.
"That is true."
"Xaymar, queen of storms...." the raider chief repeated softly. He
leaned back in the riding-chair, eyes sleepy and low-lidded. "She once
lived, did she not, in mortal form? Here, on your planetoid of Ulna?"
"Yes. That is what the stories say."
"At her command, the storm-clouds gathered? She hurled the lightning
bolts against her enemies?"
"So it is written in our sacred books."
"But then she went away," Sark murmured. "She left all you who were her
people."
The girl called Kyla did not answer.
"Or did she?" Of a sudden the raider's lidded eyes were not so sleepy.
His bulbous head came forward just a fraction. "There is another story,
priestess ... a story that says the goddess Xaymar was truly woman--the
most beautiful woman your world had ever seen. And because she was
woman, human, she could not bear the thought that she must age and
wither. So she commanded that she be placed, still young and in the
full bloom of her beauty, within a secret crypt in frozen sleep, so
that she might live forever as she had been."
* * * * *
For an instant Haral thought he could see a new tremor touch the
priestess Kyla's slim young body. But only for an instant. Then her
shoulders straightened. Her tone was cool, disdainful: "These are old
wives' tales our stupid Ulnos tell--empty, without meaning. Xaymar was
not even of my people, if indeed she ever lived. The old books say she
came from a forgotten alien race, long vanished."
Haral felt a sudden rush of admiration--a kinship, almost, born of the
girl's poise and unbending courage.
What path had she traveled to this final meeting? What forces had
driven her to do whatever she had done to catch Sark's notice? Why was
she playing for such stakes in a mad world filled with monsters?
What forces? His jaw tightened. Why had he, himself, come? Why was he
throwing his own life into the balance? There could be no answer; not
really. Not even five hundred _samori_ were enough to account for it.
A man did the things that he must do--played the crazy game as he saw
it and made up the reasons later; that was all. Raider, priestess,
adventurer--each carved his own destiny.
Even Sark....
The raider chief was smiling now--a slow, smirking, secretive smile
that was somehow horrible and loathsome. "But the other part,
priestess? Is it true? Was your Xaymar really sealed in frozen sleep in
a hidden vault here on your pygmy world of Ulna?"
The girl's slim shoulders lifted in a shrug. "Who knows? We _Shamon_
only let the tales go on to satisfy the Ulnos."
"What? You do not know?" Sark's fat-rimmed eyes now were bright and
mocking; and, watching him, Haral gave new weight to the raider's craft
and menace. "But I had heard a different story, Priestess Kyla! They
told me you _did_ know--that you knew more of it than any other."
It was coming now, the moment of crisis. Haral could see it in their
faces.
Grimly, he gripped his light-lance.
But Kyla still faced the raider chieftain boldly. "I cannot help what
others say. I do not know."
The squat monster in the riding-chair leaned back once more, still
smiling his secretive, sinister smile. A strange horror clung to his
very calm, the deadly benignity of his soft-spoken words. It was as if
he were some great toad, toying tenderly with a lovely, captive moth
that its agony might last the longer.
"They say your whole life is given to a search for Xaymar, priestess.
That you dream of the days when the _Shamon_ still ruled Ulna, and so
you seek your goddess's hidden crypt, in order to rouse her from her
sleep and turn her powers against all those whom you call alien." He
licked his lips, and his head seemed to sink between his shoulders.
"Some claim you even know where the crypt is hidden, and could go there
now, were it not for fear of the thinking beetles, the coleoptera."
* * * * *
Slowly, the color drained from Kyla's face. A spark close akin to
panic lighted in her eyes. She did not speak.
"Why do you blanch so, priestess?" Sark prodded. "I only seek to help
you. Tell me where your goddess lies and I'll find her for you, in
spite of the coleoptera. I'll bring her here, revive her, let her reign
again among you--"
"You talk nonsense!" the girl cried. But her voice broke. Her whole
body trembled.
Now, suddenly, Sark seemed to grow within the riding-chair, till
he loomed like some gross giant. His lips drew back from his
stained reptilian fangs. His eyes gleamed like burning coals. The
mock-benignity, the gentleness, fell from him like a mask. His words
slashed, low and savage: "Tell me where your bitch-goddess lies, you
she-_sabar_! Tell me now, while you still have a voice to speak!"
"No, no--"
"So, virgin priestess--?" Sark's laugh rang like the mirth of hell.
And then, with furious, fiendish passion: "You'll tell, or you'll not
stay virgin long! There are mutants among my crews who have strange
lusts. Press me too far, and you'll be the one to sate them! I'll turn
them loose with you here in this arena as a show for the rest of us to
see! What's left of your tender flesh when they are through will make a
tasty morsel for the coleoptera!"
Sheer horror flooded Kyla's pale, lovely face. Convulsively, she tried
to tear free from the grip of the two _Pervods_ who held her.
But they laughed aloud and jerked her back; lifted her upright before
their chief, panting and struggling.
Haral sucked in air. In spite of himself, he dug his knees hard into
the _hwalon's_ horny flanks. It took all his effort to hold himself
otherwise immobile and fight down the fury that surged within him.
"Which shall it be, Priestess Kyla?" Sark now mocked with savage
malice. "Do you talk and live, or meet my men? The choice is yours!"
* * * * *
For a moment the girl's eyes closed. Then, slowly, they opened once
more, and she stood erect in the _Pervods'_ grasp. Her breath came
faster. "Do you think me so weak that I'd betray my goddess and my
people to save myself?" she cried passionately. A wave of wild,
half-hysterical laughter shook her. "I know what you want! You seek
not Xaymar, but Xaymar's secret--the way she harnessed the power that
lies within the lightning, a power so great that with it you might
rule the universe! But you will not have it! Bring on your crew, your
coleoptera--"
Haral went rigid in the _hwalon's_ saddle. The girl's words rang in his
ears, his brain.
There it was! There lay the secret, the prize that had lured Sark here
to Ulna!
A prize of power.
The search for it had led this slim girl-priestess here, to death,
dishonor.
The fear that such a secret might go to Sark, be lost to Ulna, had
spurred the old high priest, Namboina, to dark plots and plans for
murder.
Power! Haral's fist clenched. The lust for it had driven him on bloody
courses that stretched across half this solar system. It had earned him
a name, that lust; and then it had put a price on his head to match it,
till at last he'd had no choice but to flee out here, beyond all law,
to this mad, twisted world of Ulna.
And now--?
Within him his heart was pounding, pounding, like the beat of one of
Titan's great _corba dia_; and of a sudden he knew it was destiny that
had brought him to the blood and dirt and heat of this foul arena.
His own dark destiny that had marked him out from day of birth to carve
an empire....
As from afar, he heard Sark's furious voice lashing out at Kyla: "Defy
me, will you? Then so be it!" The raider surged up, half out of the
riding-chair. Savagely, he slapped the slim girl-priestess across the
face, so hard that his webbed fingers left great welts of white and
scarlet. "To the ring with her! To the ring!"
The _Pervods_ jerked Kyla back. Roughly, they dragged her to the fenced
ring that served as pit for the arena and threw her in.
In his turn, the blue man shifted. The tension was running high within
him now, locked in the icy bands of iron-nerved control. Once more,
he surveyed the howling crowd and Sark's mongrel raider crewmen, then
smiled to himself with dark, reckless mirth.
Fat face still livid, Sark sank back into the depths of his
riding-chair. "Who's first?" he cried. "Who wants to test the brave
priestess?"
* * * * *
A shout burst forth from a hundred savage throats. A churning mass of
nightmare forms of life thrust forward.
But before the raider chief could even make a choice, a huge, hairy,
heavy-thewed Uranian _dau_ was charging to the fence. Full seven
feet tall he stood, and he bowled the others from his path like
_byul_-balls, a living avalanche of lust. Leaping high in the air, he
caught the top strand of the cable and swung up and over, dropping into
the arena like some monstrous, many-armed Earth gorilla.
The girl called Kyla stared at the creature as if paralyzed with
horror. She did not even raise her hands.
"I give you your last thought as a chaste priestess!" Sark cried,
taunting. "You shared your secret with another--the high priest, him
they call Namboina! He, too, knows where Xaymar's crypt lies hidden! So
all your stubbornness has gained you nothing, for I'll tear the truth
from him even though you die here!"
Kyla's tragic eyes went wide--shocked, half-disbelieving.
Haral breathed deep. The tension was a tight knot in his stomach now.
His hand grew sweaty against the light-lance.
Slavering, the Uranian shambled towards Kyla. The mad din of the crowd
grew deafening.
A churning excitement boiled within the blue warrior. This was the
moment for which he'd come; this was the final peak of crisis.
The _dau_ lunged.
In one smooth flow of motion, Haral whipped up the light-lance. Its
beam speared out, stabbing at the _dau_.
The lumbering creature stumbled and swerved, twisting in a sudden,
agonized frenzy. Smoke curled from the matted hair of its massive
torso. It tottered--fell back a step--another--another. Then, arms and
legs jerking spasmodically, head out of control, it crumpled into the
gory dirt of the arena and lay twitching.
A thunderous, stupefied silence fell upon the crowd. Creatures from the
far-flung planets of the whole solar system stared in blank disbelief.
Then, suddenly, the shocked spell broke; and Sark was on his feet and
shrieking, "Seize him! Kill him! Blast him down!"
The mob surged forward.
But now Haral was moving too, booting his great blue _hwalon_ dragon
into the screaming throng, clawing and slashing and trampling. A
force ray struck him a hammer blow between the shoulders, but its
impact broke on the heavy copronium armor and he paid it no heed. His
light-lance blazed--again; again. A _Pervod_ fell. A _Malya_ writhed
back in his death throes.
Then the _hwalon_ was surging against the fence that bounded the arena.
The blue man roared, "Kyla--!" And, to the crowd: "Back! Back--! Stand
back or die!"
The wave of bodies broke. The milling mass gave way.
Savagely, Haral slashed at the cables with his lance-beam.
* * * * *
Snapping like tight-drawn strings, they parted. Already, beyond, the
girl-priestess Kyla was running up beside him. Sweeping low in the
saddle, he caught her arm and lifted her bodily to a place in front of
him astride the _hwalon_.
But if the crowd, the rabble, was falling back, Sark's raiders now were
forming.
Again Haral spurred the _hwalon_--driving it forward, straight at the
mutant chieftain.
"You--Sark! Call off your pack if you want to live!" he cried.
He leveled the light-lance, like a helium hammer to drive home his
words.
Sark's face took on the color of the molten purple mud in Mercury's
_sotol_ swamps. Spasmodically, he clutched the switch set in his
chair-arm. His voice, his body, shook with seething fury. "Who are you,
_chitza_, that you should come so long a way to die?"
Haral brought the _hwalon_ to a halt, so close to the raider chief that
the lance's ray-head gouged Sark's gross midriff.
"They call me Haral," he slashed back fiercely. "Perhaps you've heard
the name--if they ever let you pause to listen where warriors spoke. As
for dying, I'll meet that when it comes. But not from you, Sark. Not
here; not now."
The raider's webbed fingers flexed and clenched. His fat-rimmed eyes
glinted like murderous Titanian diamonds set in flesh.
"Haral--?" A sneer contorted his fat face. "A raider without a ship.
A space tramp soaked in _kabat_." He bared his teeth. "You fool! What
chance do you think you have? My men surround you, ready to blast you!"
Haral laughed aloud. "And what happens to the woman--Xaymar's
priestess, Kyla?" he challenged harshly. "Her body's pressed next to
mine. Can your blasters kill me, and let her live? Can they burn my
armor through, yet leave her still unharmed?" Again he laughed, and
the fierce recklessness he felt poured out in hot, slashing words.
"No, Sark! You can't afford to have her die, no matter how you'd shame
her or abuse her to break her spirit and make her speak. For though
you talk of the old high priest, Namboina, you can't know for sure how
much she told him. Your crew hasn't even managed to catch him. So if
this woman dies, it may well be that your only chance for the goddess
Xaymar's secret will die with her!"
In the same instant, he wondered bleakly what would happen if he'd
guessed Sark and the situation wrong.
* * * * *
A veil seemed to fall across the raider's eyes. When he spoke, his
voice had lost its fury. Now it was gentle again, almost--low-pitched,
persuasive, as it had been when he first talked to Kyla.
"I've heard the tales they tell of you, Haral, and they all say that
you're mad--mad with ambition, mad with daring. You want the whole
universe for your own, they say, and you'll throw your own life on the
block to claim it. But even ambition and daring can go too far."
He paused and eyed Haral. Then, when the blue man made no answer, he
went on again. The persuasive note in his voice grew stronger.
"Can't you see what you're doing, warrior? I'm _gar_ of the raiders. If
I let you carry off this woman, it means the end of me. Every _stabat_
on the spaceways will say, 'Sark has lost his strength. Sark has let
Haral take a woman from him.' Even my own crews would mutiny against
me."
"And so--?"
"So I cannot let you go, Haral. No matter what the cost, I must kill
you. If not now, then later. If you take the woman, you must die!"
Haral could feel his stomach muscles quiver. The menace that radiated
out from Sark hung over him like some deadly cloud.
Baring his own teeth in a death's-head grin, he dug the light-lance
deeper into Sark's rolls of flesh.
He said: "If the things you say are true, _Gar_ Sark, then I must kill
you now, before you have the chance to slay me." He allowed himself the
luxury of a thin, wry smile. "In fact, perhaps it would be best that
way. With you dead, your men might pick me as their leader...."
Silence echoed for a moment long as eternity, while their eyes locked
in a fierce, interminable battle.
Then, slowly, Sark smiled and shook his head. His webbed fingers
caressed the switch set in his chair-arm.
"You'll never kill me, warrior," he answered Haral. "I have a reason
for this riding-chair, a reason beyond mere comfort."
Haral said nothing.
"This switch"--the raider closed his hand about it--"connects with the
box that hangs beneath me. A cymosynthesizer box, you may have guessed."
"A cymosynthesizer--?"
"A very special kind of cymosynthesizer, warrior." Sark chuckled
grimly. "The multiplying waves of energy it radiates are synthesized
and focused on the core of this pygmy planetoid of Ulna. When they
strike it, they'll disrupt its whole atomic structure and set up a
disintegrative chain reaction."
Haral stared at him, unbelieving. "You mean--?"
"I mean that I hold the power to destroy this whole world within my
hand!" Sark cried in sudden, explosive anger. "This is my protection
against you and all others! I have but to throw this switch, and Ulna
itself will be torn asunder--and you and the woman and all else with
it! If I die, you die, also! That is my answer to you, _chitza_!"
* * * * *
Haral said tightly: "You lie! No cymosynthesizer can set up an
initiating wave strong enough to tear apart a whole planet!"
"Then try me! Make me prove it!" the raider chieftain spat. "It's
simple, warrior! Just trigger a beam from your light-lance through me!
As I die, I'll still throw the switch, and there will be your answer!"
Haral sat very still. He was gripping his lance's shaft so hard that
the very bones of his fingers ached. A thin rill of sweat ran down his
spine. Yet he could not fight off the spell of shock that gripped him.
As if sensing it, Sark spoke once more in coaxing tones: "You make your
task hard, warrior. There is an easier way. Give up this madness, this
trying to beat me and destroy me. Daring is a virtue I, too, admire.
Stay with me and I'll make you a captain in my fleet, give you a ship
so you can raid again. Then, when I've won this thrice-cursed Xaymar's
secret, together we'll reach out across the universe to bring all
planets into our power. Or, if it's the woman you want,"--he laughed
his smirking, obscene laugh--"why, as soon as she's told me the things
I want to know, I'll let you have her--"
Haral felt Kyla's slim body stiffen against him. A tremor ran through
her.
His answer to Sark came almost without volition. "No."
"What--?"
The spell was broken, now. The recklessness was back, and the fierce
surge of ambition.
That, and something more ... a something Haral could not quite touch.
He laughed aloud. "I'm leaving now, Sark!" he cried. "I'm leaving, and
I'm taking the woman with me. Blast us if you will!"
The blandness fell from Sark. He half rose from his seat, his face
contorted. "You _chitza_--!"
Haral laughed again. "Blast, Sark!" he mocked. "But if you do,
remember--your chance for the girl dies with me!"
"_Stabat! Zanat! Starbo_--"
"Go ahead, great _gar_! Blast us! Take your chances on what you can
learn from old Namboina!"
Slowly, then, Sark sank back into his chair. His eyes were like live
coals, incredibly baleful.
"Go!" he choked thickly. "Go, for now, you _chitza_! Take your woman
and your _hwalon_ and your light-lance! My day will come, and when
it does, you'll pray for a death that will not answer! You and the
woman--you'll share your agony together, and in the end I'll still
claim Xaymar's secret--"
Haral said: "Perhaps. Or perhaps it will be you who rots in hell
instead."
Bleakly, he wheeled the _hwalon_; and to the crowd he shouted, "There's
death in my lance for the man that follows!" Then, weapon ready, the
girl close against him, heedless of the steaming hate and curses of the
mob that parted before him, he rode away.