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diff --git a/32664-h/32664-h.htm b/32664-h/32664-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4b69206 --- /dev/null +++ b/32664-h/32664-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3786 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Black Amazon Of Mars, by LEIGH BRACKETT. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; +} /* page numbers */ + +.linenum { + position: absolute; + top: auto; + left: 4%; +} /* poetry number */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.sidenote { + width: 20%; + padding-bottom: .5em; + padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; + padding-right: .5em; + margin-left: 1em; + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; + color: black; + background: #eeeeee; + border: dashed 1px; +} + +.bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + +.bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + +.bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + +.br {border-right: solid 2px;} + +.bbox {border: solid 2px;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.u {text-decoration: underline;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 1em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +.figright { + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-left: 1em; + margin-bottom: + 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i2 { + display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i4 { + display: block; + margin-left: 4em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Black Amazon of Mars, by Leigh Brackett + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Black Amazon of Mars + +Author: Leigh Brackett + +Release Date: June 2, 2010 [EBook #32664] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACK AMAZON OF MARS *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + +<h1>Black Amazon of Mars</h1> + +<h2>A Novel by LEIGH BRACKETT</h2> + +<p>[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories March +1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. +copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<h3> +<a href="#I">I</a><br /> +<a href="#II">II</a><br /> +<a href="#III">III</a><br /> +<a href="#IV">IV</a><br /> +<a href="#V">V</a><br /> +<a href="#VI">VI</a><br /> +<a href="#VII">VII</a><br /> +<a href="#VIII">VIII</a><br /> +<a href="#IX">IX</a><br /> +</h3> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h2> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Grimly Eric John Stark slogged toward that ancient Martian +city—with every step he cursed the talisman of Ban Cruach that flamed +in his blood-stained belt. Behind him screamed the hordes of Ciaran, +hungering for that magic jewel—ahead lay the dread abode of the Ice +Creatures—at his side stalked the whispering spectre of Ban Cruach, +urging him on to a battle Stark knew he must lose!</i></div> + + +<p>Through all the long cold hours of the Norland night the Martian had not +moved nor spoken. At dusk of the day before Eric John Stark had brought +him into the ruined tower and laid him down, wrapped in blankets, on the +snow. He had built a fire of dead brush, and since then the two men had +waited, alone in the vast wasteland that girdles the polar cap of Mars.</p> + +<p>Now, just before dawn, Camar the Martian spoke.</p> + +<p>"Stark."</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"I am dying."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"I will not reach Kushat."</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>Camar nodded. He was silent again.</p> + +<p>The wind howled down from the northern ice, and the broken walls rose up +against it, brooding, gigantic, roofless now but so huge and sprawling +that they seemed less like walls than cliffs of ebon stone. Stark would +not have gone near them but for Camar. They were wrong, somehow, with a +taint of forgotten evil still about them.</p> + +<p>The big Earthman glanced at Camar, and his face was sad. "A man likes to +die in his own place," he said abruptly. "I am sorry."</p> + +<p>"The Lord of Silence is a great personage," Camar answered. "He does not +mind the meeting place. No. It was not for that I came back into the +Norlands."</p> + +<p>He was shaken by an agony that was not of the body. "And I shall not +reach Kushat!"</p> + +<p>Stark spoke quietly, using the courtly High Martian almost as fluently +as Camar.</p> + +<p>"I have known that there was a burden heavier than death upon my +brother's soul."</p> + +<p>He leaned over, placing one large hand on the Martian's shoulder. "My +brother has given his life for mine. Therefore, I will take his burden +upon myself, if I can."</p> + +<p>He did not want Camar's burden, whatever it might be. But the Martian +had fought beside him through a long guerilla campaign among the harried +tribes of the nearer moon. He was a good man of his hands, and in the +end had taken the bullet that was meant for Stark, knowing quite well +what he was doing. They were friends.</p> + +<p>That was why Stark had brought Camar into the bleak north country, +trying to reach the city of his birth. The Martian was driven by some +secret demon. He was afraid to die before he reached Kushat.</p> + +<p>And now he had no choice.</p> + +<p>"I have sinned, Stark. I have stolen a holy thing. You're an outlander, +you would not know of Ban Cruach, and the talisman that he left when he +went away forever beyond the Gates of Death."</p> + +<p>Camar flung aside the blankets and sat up, his voice gaining a febrile +strength.</p> + +<p>"I was born and bred in the Thieves' Quarter under the Wall. I was proud +of my skill. And the talisman was a challenge. It was a treasured +thing—so treasured that hardly a man has touched it since the days of +Ban Cruach who made it. And that was in the days when men still had the +lustre on them, before they forgot that they were gods.</p> + +<p>"'Guard well the Gates of Death,' he said, 'that is the city's trust. +And keep the talisman always, for the day may come when you will need +its strength. Who holds Kushat holds Mars—and the talisman will keep +the city safe.'</p> + +<p>"I was a thief, and proud. And I stole the talisman."</p> + +<p>His hands went to his girdle, a belt of worn leather with a boss of +battered steel. But his fingers were already numb.</p> + +<p>"Take it, Stark. Open the boss—there, on the side, where the beast's +head is carved...."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Stark took the belt from Camar and found the hidden spring. The rounded +top of the boss came free. Inside it was something wrapped in a scrap of +silk.</p> + +<p>"I had to leave Kushat," Camar whispered. "I could never go back. But it +was enough—to have taken that."</p> + +<p>He watched, shaken between awe and pride and remorse, as Stark unwrapped +the bit of silk.</p> + +<p>Stark had discounted most of Camar's talk as superstition, but even so +he had expected something more spectacular than the object he held in +his palm.</p> + +<p>It was a lens, some four inches across—man-made, and made with great +skill, but still only a bit of crystal. Turning it about, Stark saw that +it was not a simple lens, but an intricate interlocking of many facets. +Incredibly complicated, hypnotic if one looked at it too long.</p> + +<p>"What is its use?" he asked of Camar.</p> + +<p>"We are as children. We have forgotten. But there is a legend, a +belief—that Ban Cruach himself made the talisman as a sign that he +would not forget us, and would come back when Kushat is threatened. Back +through the Gates of Death, to teach us again the power that was his!"</p> + +<p>"I do not understand," said Stark. "What are the Gates of Death?"</p> + +<p>Camar answered, "It is a pass that opens into the black mountains beyond +Kushat. The city stands guard before it—why, no man remembers, except +that it is a great trust."</p> + +<p>His gaze feasted on the talisman.</p> + +<p>Stark said, "You wish me to take this to Kushat?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Yes! And yet...." Camar looked at Stark, his eyes filling suddenly +with tears. "No. The North is not used to strangers. With me, you might +have been safe. But alone.... No, Stark. You have risked too much +already. Go back, out of the Norlands, while you can."</p> + +<p>He lay back on the blankets. Stark saw that a bluish pallor had come +into the hollows of his cheeks.</p> + +<p>"Camar," he said. And again, "Camar!"</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"Go in peace, Camar. I will take the talisman to Kushat."</p> + +<p>The Martian sighed, and smiled, and Stark was glad that he had made the +promise.</p> + +<p>"The riders of Mekh are wolves," said Camar suddenly. "They hunt these +gorges. Look out for them."</p> + +<p>"I will."</p> + +<p>Stark's knowledge of the geography of this part of Mars was vague +indeed, but he knew that the mountain valleys of Mekh lay ahead and to +the north, between him and Kushat. Camar had told him of these upland +warriors. He was willing to heed the warning.</p> + +<p>Camar had done with talking. Stark knew that he had not long to wait. +The wind spoke with the voice of a great organ. The moons had set and it +was very dark outside the tower, except for the white glimmering of the +snow. Stark looked up at the brooding walls, and shivered. There was a +smell of death already in the air.</p> + +<p>To keep from thinking, he bent closer to the fire, studying the lens. +There were scratches on the bezel, as though it had been held sometime +in a clamp, or setting, like a jewel. An ornament, probably, worn as a +badge of rank. Strange ornament for a barbarian king, in the dawn of +Mars. The firelight made tiny dancing sparks in the endless inner +facets. Quite suddenly, he had a curious feeling that the thing was +alive.</p> + +<p>A pang of primitive and unreasoning fear shot through him, and he fought +it down. His vision was beginning to blur, and he shut his eyes, and in +the darkness it seemed to him that he could see and hear....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He started up, shaken now with an eerie terror, and raised his hand to +hurl the talisman away. But the part of him that had learned with much +pain and effort to be civilized made him stop, and think.</p> + +<p>He sat down again. An instrument of hypnosis? Possibly. And yet that +fleeting touch of sight and sound had not been his own, out of his own +memories.</p> + +<p>He was tempted now, fascinated, like a child that plays with fire. The +talisman had been worn somehow. Where? On the breast? On the brow?</p> + +<p>He tried the first, with no result. Then he touched the flat surface of +the lens to his forehead.</p> + +<p><i>The great tower of stone rose up monstrous to the sky. It was whole, +and there were pallid lights within that stirred and flickered, and it +was crowned with a shimmering darkness.</i></p> + +<p>He lay outside the tower, on his belly, and he was filled with fear and +a great anger, and a loathing such as turns the bones to water. There +was no snow. There was ice everywhere, rising to half the tower's +height, sheathing the ground.</p> + +<p>Ice. Cold and clear and beautiful—and deadly.</p> + +<p>He moved. He glided snakelike, with infinite caution, over the smooth +surface. The tower was gone, and far below him was a city. He saw the +temples and the palaces, the glittering lovely city beneath him in the +ice, blurred and fairylike and strange, a dream half glimpsed through +crystal.</p> + +<p>He saw the Ones that lived there, moving slowly through the streets. He +could not see them clearly, only the vague shining of their bodies, and +he was glad.</p> + +<p>He hated them, with a hatred that conquered even his fear, which was +great indeed.</p> + +<p>He was not Eric John Stark. He was Ban Cruach.</p> + +<p>The tower and the city vanished, swept away on a reeling tide.</p> + +<p>He stood beneath a scarp of black rock, notched with a single pass. The +cliffs hung over him, leaning out their vast bulk as though to crush +him, and the narrow mouth of the pass was full of evil laughter where +the wind went by.</p> + +<p>He began to walk forward, into the pass. He was quite alone.</p> + +<p>The light was dim and strange at the bottom of that cleft. Little veils +of mist crept and clung between the ice and the rock, thickened, became +more dense as he went farther and farther into the pass. He could not +see, and the wind spoke with many tongues, piping in the crevices of the +cliffs.</p> + +<p>All at once there was a shadow in the mist before him, a dim gigantic +shape that moved toward him, and he knew that he looked at death. He +cried out....</p> + +<p>It was Stark who yelled in blind atavistic fear, and the echo of his own +cry brought him up standing, shaking in every limb. He had dropped the +talisman. It lay gleaming in the snow at his feet, and the alien +memories were gone—and Camar was dead.</p> + +<p>After a time he crouched down, breathing harshly. He did not want to +touch the lens again. The part of him that had learned to fear strange +gods and evil spirits with every step he took, the primitive aboriginal +that lay so close under the surface of his mind, warned him to leave it, +to run away, to desert this place of death and ruined stone.</p> + +<p>He forced himself to take it up. He did not look at it. He wrapped it in +the bit of silk and replaced it inside the iron boss, and clasped the +belt around his waist. Then he found the small flask that lay with his +gear beside the fire and took a long pull, and tried to think rationally +of the thing that had happened.</p> + +<p>Memories. Not his own, but the memories of Ban Cruach, a million years +ago in the morning of a world. Memories of hate, a secret war against +unhuman beings that dwelt in crystal cities cut in the living ice, and +used these ruined towers for some dark purpose of their own.</p> + +<p>Was that the meaning of the talisman, the power that lay within it? Had +Ban Cruach, by some elder and forgotten science, imprisoned the echoes +of his own mind in the crystal?</p> + +<p>Why? Perhaps as a warning, as a reminder of ageless, alien danger beyond +the Gates of Death?</p> + +<p>Suddenly one of the beasts tethered outside the ruined tower started up +from its sleep with a hissing snarl.</p> + +<p>Instantly Stark became motionless.</p> + +<p>They came silently on their padded feet, the rangy mountain brutes +moving daintily through the sprawling ruin. Their riders too were +silent—tall men with fierce eyes and russet hair, wearing leather coats +and carrying each a long, straight spear.</p> + +<p>There were a score of them around the tower in the windy gloom. Stark +did not bother to draw his gun. He had learned very young the difference +between courage and idiocy.</p> + +<p>He walked out toward them, slowly lest one of them be startled into +spearing him, yet not slowly enough to denote fear. And he held up his +right hand and gave them greeting.</p> + +<p>They did not answer him. They sat their restive mounts and stared at +him, and Stark knew that Camar had spoken the truth. These were the +riders of Mekh, and they were wolves.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2> + + +<p>Stark waited, until they should tire of their own silence.</p> + +<p>Finally one demanded, "Of what country are you?"</p> + +<p>He answered, "I am called N'Chaka, the Man-Without-a-Tribe."</p> + +<p>It was the name they had given him, the half-human aboriginals who had +raised him in the blaze and thunder and bitter frosts of Mercury.</p> + +<p>"A stranger," said the leader, and smiled. He pointed at the dead Camar +and asked, "Did you slay him?"</p> + +<p>"He was my friend," said Stark, "I was bringing him home to die."</p> + +<p>Two riders dismounted to inspect the body. One called up to the leader, +"He was from Kushat, if I know the breed, Thord! And he has not been +robbed." He proceeded to take care of that detail himself.</p> + +<p>"A stranger," repeated the leader, Thord. "Bound for Kushat, with a man +of Kushat. Well. I think you will come with us, stranger."</p> + +<p>Stark shrugged. And with the long spears pricking him, he did not resist +when the tall Thord plundered him of all he owned except his +clothes—and Camar's belt, which was not worth the stealing. His gun +Thord flung contemptuously away.</p> + +<p>One of the men brought Stark's beast and Camar's from where they were +tethered, and the Earthman mounted—as usual, over the violent protest +of the creature, which did not like the smell of him. They moved out +from under the shelter of the walls, into the full fury of the wind.</p> + +<p>For the rest of that night, and through the next day and the night that +followed it they rode eastward, stopping only to rest the beasts and +chew on their rations of jerked meat.</p> + +<p>To Stark, riding a prisoner, it came with full force that this was the +North country, half a world away from the Mars of spaceships and +commerce and visitors from other planets. The future had never touched +these wild mountains and barren plains. The past held pride enough.</p> + +<p>To the north, the horizon showed a strange and ghostly glimmer where the +barrier wall of the polar pack reared up, gigantic against the sky. The +wind blew, down from the ice, through the mountain gorges, across the +plains, never ceasing. And here and there the cryptic towers rose, +broken monoliths of stone. Stark remembered the vision of the talisman, +the huge structure crowned with eerie darkness. He looked upon the ruins +with loathing and curiosity. The men of Mekh could tell him nothing.</p> + +<p>Thord did not tell Stark where they were taking him, and Stark did not +ask. It would have been an admission of fear.</p> + +<p>In mid-afternoon of the second day they came to a lip of rock where the +snow was swept clean, and below it was a sheer drop into a narrow +valley. Looking down, Stark saw that on the floor of the valley, up and +down as far as he could see, were men and beasts and shelters of hide +and brush, and fires burning. By the hundreds, by the several thousand, +they camped under the cliffs, and their voices rose up on the thin air +in a vast deep murmur that was deafening after the silence of the +plains.</p> + +<p>A war party, gathered now, before the thaw. Stark smiled. He became +curious to meet the leader of this army.</p> + +<p>They found their way single file along a winding track that dropped down +the cliff face. The wind stopped abruptly, cut off by the valley walls. +They came in among the shelters of the camp.</p> + +<p>Here the snow was churned and soiled and melted to slush by the fires. +There were no women in the camp, no sign of the usual cheerful rabble +that follows a barbarian army. There were only men—hillmen and warriors +all, tough-handed killers with no thought but battle.</p> + +<p>They came out of their holes to shout at Thord and his men, and stare at +the stranger. Thord was flushed and jovial with importance.</p> + +<p>"I have no time for you," he shouted back. "I go to speak with the Lord +Ciaran."</p> + +<p>Stark rode impassively, a dark giant with a face of stone. From time to +time he made his beast curvet, and laughed at himself inwardly for doing +it.</p> + +<p>They came at length to a shelter larger than the others, but built +exactly the same and no more comfortable. A spear was thrust into the +snow beside the entrance, and from it hung a black pennant with a single +bar of silver across it, like lightning in a night sky. Beside it was a +shield with the same device. There were no guards.</p> + +<p>Thord dismounted, bidding Stark to do the same. He hammered on the +shield with the hilt of his sword, announcing himself.</p> + +<p>"Lord Ciaran! It is Thord—with a captive."</p> + +<p>A voice, toneless and strangely muffled, spoke from within.</p> + +<p>"Enter, Thord."</p> + +<p>Thord pushed aside the hide curtain and went in, with Stark at his +heels.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The dim daylight did not penetrate the interior. Cressets burned, giving +off a flickering brilliance and a smell of strong oil. The floor of +packed snow was carpeted with furs, much worn. Otherwise there was no +adornment, and no furniture but a chair and a table, both dark with age +and use, and a pallet of skins in one shadowy corner with what seemed to +be a heap of rags upon it.</p> + +<p>In the chair sat a man.</p> + +<p>He seemed very tall, in the shaking light of the cressets. From neck to +thigh his lean body was cased in black link mail, and under that a tunic +of leather, dyed black. Across his knees he held a sable axe, a great +thing made for the shearing of skulls, and his hands lay upon it gently, +as though it were a toy he loved.</p> + +<p>His head and face were covered by a thing that Stark had seen before +only in very old paintings—the ancient war-mask of the inland Kings of +Mars. Wrought of black and gleaming steel, it presented an unhuman +visage of slitted eyeholes and a barred slot for breathing. Behind, it +sprang out in a thin, soaring sweep, like a dark wing edge-on in flight.</p> + +<p>The intent, expressionless scrutiny of that mask was bent, not upon +Thord, but upon Eric John Stark.</p> + +<p>The hollow voice spoke again, from behind the mask. "Well?"</p> + +<p>"We were hunting in the gorges to the south," said Thord. "We saw a +fire...." He told the story, of how they had found the stranger and the +body of the man from Kushat.</p> + +<p>"Kushat!" said the Lord Ciaran softly. "Ah! And why, stranger, were you +going to Kushat?"</p> + +<p>"My name is Stark. Eric John Stark, Earthman, out of Mercury." He was +tired of being called stranger. Quite suddenly, he was tired of the +whole business.</p> + +<p>"Why should I not go to Kushat? Is it against some law, that a man may +not go there in peace without being hounded all over the Norlands? And +why do the men of Mekh make it their business? They have nothing to do +with the city."</p> + +<p>Thord held his breath, watching with delighted anticipation.</p> + +<p>The hands of the man in armor caressed the axe. They were slender hands, +smooth and sinewy—small hands, it seemed, for such a weapon.</p> + +<p>"We make what we will our business, Eric John Stark." He spoke with a +peculiar gentleness. "I have asked you. Why were you going to Kushat?"</p> + +<p>"Because," Stark answered with equal restraint, "my comrade wanted to go +home to die."</p> + +<p>"It seems a long, hard journey, just for dying." The black helm bent +forward, in an attitude of thought. "Only the condemned or banished +leave their cities, or their clans. Why did your comrade flee Kushat?"</p> + +<p>A voice spoke suddenly from out of the heap of rags that lay on the +pallet in the shadows of the corner. A man's voice, deep and husky, with +the harsh quaver of age or madness in it.</p> + +<p>"Three men beside myself have fled Kushat, over the years that matter. +One died in the spring floods. One was caught in the moving ice of +winter. One lived. A thief named Camar, who stole a certain talisman."</p> + +<p>Stark said, "My comrade was called Greshi." The leather belt weighed +heavy about him, and the iron boss seemed hot against his belly. He was +beginning, now, to be afraid.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The Lord Ciaran spoke, ignoring Stark. "It was the sacred talisman of +Kushat. Without it, the city is like a man without a soul."</p> + +<p>As the Veil of Tanit was to Carthage, Stark thought, and reflected on +the fate of that city after the Veil was stolen.</p> + +<p>"The nobles were afraid of their own people," the man in armor said. +"They did not dare to tell that it was gone. But we know."</p> + +<p>"And," said Stark, "you will attack Kushat before the thaw, when they +least expect you."</p> + +<p>"You have a sharp mind, stranger. Yes. But the great wall will be hard +to carry, even so. If I came, bearing in <i>my</i> hands the talisman of Ban +Cruach...."</p> + +<p>He did not finish, but turned instead to Thord. "When you plundered the +dead man's body, what did you find?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing, Lord. A few coins, a knife, hardly worth the taking."</p> + +<p>"And you, Eric John Stark. What did you take from the body?"</p> + +<p>With perfect truth he answered, "Nothing."</p> + +<p>"Thord," said the Lord Ciaran, "search him."</p> + +<p>Thord came smiling up to Stark and ripped his jacket open.</p> + +<p>With uncanny swiftness, the Earthman moved. The edge of one broad hand +took Thord under the ear, and before the man's knees had time to sag +Stark had caught his arm. He turned, crouching forward, and pitched +Thord headlong through the door flap.</p> + +<p>He straightened and turned again. His eyes held a feral glint. "The man +has robbed me once," he said. "It is enough."</p> + +<p>He heard Thord's men coming. Three of them tried to jam through the +entrance at once, and he sprang at them. He made no sound. His fists did +the talking for him, and then his feet, as he kicked the stunned +barbarians back upon their leader.</p> + +<p>"Now," he said to the Lord Ciaran, "will we talk as men?"</p> + +<p>The man in armor laughed, a sound of pure enjoyment. It seemed that the +gaze behind the mask studied Stark's savage face, and then lifted to +greet the sullen Thord who came back into the shelter, his cheeks +flushed crimson with rage.</p> + +<p>"Go," said the Lord Ciaran. "The stranger and I will talk."</p> + +<p>"But Lord," he protested, glaring at Stark, "it is not safe...."</p> + +<p>"My dark mistress looks after my safety," said Ciaran, stroking the axe +across his knees. "Go."</p> + +<p>Thord went.</p> + +<p>The man in armor was silent then, the blind mask turned to Stark, who +met that eyeless gaze and was silent also. And the bundle of rags in the +shadows straightened slowly and became a tall old man with rusty hair +and beard, through which peered craggy juts of bone and two bright, +small points of fire, as though some wicked flame burned within him.</p> + +<p>He shuffled over and crouched at the feet of the Lord Ciaran, watching +the Earthman. And the man in armor leaned forward.</p> + +<p>"I will tell you something, Eric John Stark. I am a bastard, but I come +of the blood of kings. My name and rank I must make with my own hands. +But I will set them high, and my name will ring in the Norlands!</p> + +<p>"I will take Kushat. Who holds Kushat, holds Mars—and the power and the +riches that lie beyond the Gates of Death!"</p> + +<p>"I have seen them," said the old man, and his eyes blazed. "I have seen +Ban Cruach the mighty. I have seen the temples and the palaces glitter +in the ice. I have seen <i>Them</i>, the shining ones. Oh, I have seen them, +the beautiful, hideous ones!"</p> + +<p>He glanced sidelong at Stark, very cunning. "That is why Otar is mad, +stranger. <i>He has seen.</i>"</p> + +<p>A chill swept Stark. He too had seen, not with his own eyes but with the +mind and memories of Ban Cruach, of a million years ago.</p> + +<p>Then it had been no illusion, the fantastic vision opened to him by the +talisman now hidden in his belt! If this old madman had seen....</p> + +<p>"What beings lurk beyond the Gates of Death I do not know," said Ciaran. +"But my dark mistress will test their strength—and I think my red +wolves will hunt them down, once they get a smell of plunder."</p> + +<p>"The beautiful, terrible ones," whispered Otar. "And oh, the temples and +the palaces, and the great towers of stone!"</p> + +<p>"Ride with me, Stark," said the Lord Ciaran abruptly. "Yield up the +talisman, and be the shield at my back. I have offered no other man that +honor."</p> + +<p>Stark asked slowly, "Why do you choose me?"</p> + +<p>"We are of one blood, Stark, though we be strangers."</p> + +<p>The Earthman's cold eyes narrowed. "What would your red wolves say to +that? And what would Otar say? Look at him, already stiff with jealousy, +and fear lest I answer, 'Yes'."</p> + +<p>"I do not think you would be afraid of either of them."</p> + +<p>"On the contrary," said Stark, "I am a prudent man." He paused. "There +is one other thing. I will bargain with no man until I have looked into +his eyes. Take off your helm, Ciaran—and then perhaps we will talk!"</p> + +<p>Otar's breath made a snakelike hissing between his toothless gums, and +the hands of the Lord Ciaran tightened on the haft of the axe.</p> + +<p>"No!" he whispered. "That I can never do."</p> + +<p>Otar rose to his feet, and for the first time Stark felt the full +strength that lay in this strange old man.</p> + +<p>"Would you look upon the face of destruction?" he thundered. "Do you ask +for death? Do you think a thing is hidden behind a mask of steel without +a reason, that you demand to see it?"</p> + +<p>He turned. "My Lord," he said. "By tomorrow the last of the clans will +have joined us. After that, we must march. Give this Earthman to Thord, +for the time that remains—and you will have the talisman."</p> + +<p>The blank, blind mask was unmoving, turned toward Stark, and the +Earthman thought that from behind it came a faint sound that might have +been a sigh.</p> + +<p>Then....</p> + +<p>"Thord!" cried the Lord Ciaran, and lifted up the axe.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2> + + +<p>The flames leaped high from the fire in the windless gorge. Men sat +around it in a great circle, the wild riders out of the mountain valleys +of Mekh. They sat with the curbed and shivering eagerness of wolves +around a dying quarry. Now and again their white teeth showed in a kind +of silent laughter, and their eyes watched.</p> + +<p>"He is strong," they whispered, one to the other. "He will live the +night out, surely!"</p> + +<p>On an outcrop of rock sat the Lord Ciaran, wrapped in a black cloak, +holding the great axe in the crook of his arm. Beside him, Otar huddled +in the snow.</p> + +<p>Close by, the long spears had been driven deep and lashed together to +make a scaffolding, and upon this frame was hung a man. A big man, +iron-muscled and very lean, the bulk of his shoulders filling the space +between the bending shafts. Eric John Stark of Earth, out of Mercury.</p> + +<p>He had already been scourged without mercy. He sagged of his own weight +between the spears, breathing in harsh sobs, and the trampled snow +around him was spotted red.</p> + +<p>Thord was wielding the lash. He had stripped off his own coat, and his +body glistened with sweat in spite of the cold. He cut his victim with +great care, making the long lash sing and crack. He was proud of his +skill.</p> + +<p>Stark did not cry out.</p> + +<p>Presently Thord stepped back, panting, and looked at the Lord Ciaran. +And the black helm nodded.</p> + +<p>Thord dropped the whip. He went up to the big dark man and lifted his +head by the hair.</p> + +<p>"Stark," he said, and shook the head roughly. "Stranger!"</p> + +<p>Eyes opened and stared at him, and Thord could not repress a slight +shiver. It seemed that the pain and indignity had wrought some evil +magic on this man he had ridden with, and thought he knew. He had seen +exactly the same gaze in a big snow-cat caught in a trap, and he felt +suddenly that it was not a man he spoke to, but a predatory beast.</p> + +<p>"Stark," he said. "Where is the talisman of Ban Cruach?"</p> + +<p>The Earthman did not answer.</p> + +<p>Thord laughed. He glanced up at the sky, where the moons rode low and +swift.</p> + +<p>"The night is only half gone. Do you think you can last it out?"</p> + +<p>The cold, cruel, patient eyes watched Thord. There was no reply.</p> + +<p>Some quality of pride in that gaze angered the barbarian. It seemed to +mock him, who was so sure of his ability to loosen a reluctant tongue.</p> + +<p>"You think I cannot make you talk, don't you? You don't know me, +stranger! You don't know Thord, who can make the rocks speak out if he +will!"</p> + +<p>He reached out with his free hand and struck Stark across the face.</p> + +<p>It seemed impossible that anything so still could move so quickly. There +was an ugly flash of teeth, and Thord's wrist was caught above the +thumb-joint. He bellowed, and the iron jaws closed down, worrying the +bone.</p> + +<p>Quite suddenly, Thord screamed. Not for pain, but for panic. And the +rows of watching men swayed forward, and even the Lord Ciaran rose up, +startled.</p> + +<p>"<i>Hark!</i>" ran the whispering around the fire. "Hark how he growls!"</p> + +<p>Thord had let go of Stark's hair and was beating him about the head with +his clenched fist. His face was white.</p> + +<p>"Werewolf!" he screamed. "Let me go, beast-thing! Let me go!"</p> + +<p>But the dark man clung to Thord's wrist, snarling, and did not hear. +After a bit there came the dull crack of bone.</p> + +<p>Stark opened his jaws. Thord ceased to strike him. He backed off slowly, +staring at the torn flesh. Stark had sunk down to the length of his +arms.</p> + +<p>With his left hand, Thord drew his knife. The Lord Ciaran stepped +forward. "Wait, Thord!"</p> + +<p>"It is a thing of evil," whispered the barbarian. "Warlock. Werewolf. +Beast."</p> + +<p>He sprang at Stark.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The man in armor moved, very swiftly, and the great axe went whirling +through the air. It caught Thord squarely where the cords of his neck +ran into the shoulder—caught, and shore on through.</p> + +<p>There was a silence in the valley.</p> + +<p>The Lord Ciaran walked slowly across the trampled snow and took up his +axe again.</p> + +<p>"I will be obeyed," he said. "And I will not stand for fear, not of god, +man, nor devil." He gestured toward Stark. "Cut him down. And see that +he does not die."</p> + +<p>He strode away, and Otar began to laugh.</p> + +<p>From a vast distance, Stark heard that shrill, wild laughter. His mouth +was full of blood, and he was mad with a cold fury.</p> + +<p>A cunning that was purely animal guided his movements then. His head +fell forward, and his body hung inert against the thongs. He might +almost have been dead.</p> + +<p>A knot of men came toward him. He listened to them. They were hesitant +and afraid. Then, as he did not move, they plucked up courage and came +closer, and one prodded him gently with the point of his spear.</p> + +<p>"Prick him well," said another. "Let us be sure!"</p> + +<p>The sharp point bit a little deeper. A few drops of blood welled out and +joined the small red streams that ran from the weals of the lash. Stark +did not stir.</p> + +<p>The spearman grunted. "He is safe enough now."</p> + +<p>Stark felt the knife blades working at the thongs. He waited. The +rawhide snapped, and he was free.</p> + +<p>He did not fall. He would not have fallen then if he had taken a death +wound. He gathered his legs under him and sprang.</p> + +<p>He picked up the spearman in that first rush and flung him into the +fire. Then he began to run toward the place where the scaly mounts were +herded, leaving a trail of blood behind him on the snow.</p> + +<p>A man loomed up in front of him. He saw the shadow of a spear and +swerved, and caught the haft in his two hands. He wrenched it free and +struck down with the butt of it, and went on. Behind him he heard voices +shouting and the beginning of turmoil.</p> + +<p>The Lord Ciaran turned and came back, striding fast.</p> + +<p>There were men before Stark now, many men, the circle of watchers +breaking up because there had been nothing more to watch. He gripped the +long spear. It was a good weapon, better than the flint-tipped stick +with which the boy N'Chaka had hunted the giant lizard of the rocks.</p> + +<p>His body curved into a half crouch. He voiced one cry, the challenging +scream of a predatory killer, and went in among the men.</p> + +<p>He did slaughter with that spear. They were not expecting attack. They +were not expecting anything. Stark had sprung to life too quickly. And +they were afraid of him. He could smell the fear on them. Fear not of a +man like themselves, but of a creature less and more than man.</p> + +<p>He killed, and was happy.</p> + +<p>They fell away from him, the wild riders of Mekh. They were sure now +that he was a demon. He raged among them with the bright spear, and they +heard again that sound that should not have come from a human throat, +and their superstitious terror rose and sent them scrambling out of his +path, trampling on each other in childish panic.</p> + +<p>He broke through, and now there was nothing between him and escape but +two mounted men who guarded the herd.</p> + +<p>Being mounted, they had more courage. They felt that even a warlock +could not stand against their charge. They came at him as he ran, the +padded feet of their beasts making a muffled drumming in the snow.</p> + +<p>Without breaking stride, Stark hurled his spear.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It drove through one man's body and tumbled him off, so that he fell +under his comrade's mount and fouled its legs. It staggered and reared +up, hissing, and Stark fled on.</p> + +<p>Once he glanced over his shoulder. Through the milling, shouting crowd +of men he glimpsed a dark, mailed figure with a winged mask, going +through the ruck with a loping stride and bearing a sable axe raised +high for the throwing.</p> + +<p>Stark was close to the herd now. And they caught his scent.</p> + +<p>The Norland brutes had never liked the smell of him, and now the reek of +blood upon him was enough in itself to set them wild. They began to hiss +and snarl uneasily, rubbing their reptilian flanks together as they +wheeled around, staring at him with lambent eyes.</p> + +<p>He rushed them, before they should quite decide to break. He was quick +enough to catch one by the fleshy comb that served it for a forelock, +held it with savage indifference to its squealing, and leaped to its +back. Then he let it bolt, and as he rode it he yelled, a shrill brute +cry that urged the creatures on to panic.</p> + +<p>The herd broke, stampeding outward from its center like a bursting +shell.</p> + +<p>Stark was in the forefront. Clinging low to the scaly neck, he saw the +men of Mekh scattered and churned and tramped into the snow by the +flying pads. In and out of the shelters, kicking the brush walls down, +lifting up their harsh reptilian voices, they went racketing through the +camp, leaving behind them wreckage as of a storm. And Stark went with +them.</p> + +<p>He snatched a cloak from off the shoulders of some petty chieftain as he +went by, and then, twisting cruelly on the fleshy comb, beating with his +fist at the creature's head, he got his mount turned in the way he +wanted it to go, down the valley.</p> + +<p>He caught one last glimpse of the Lord Ciaran, fighting to hold one of +the creatures long enough to mount, and then a dozen striving bodies +surged around him, and Stark was gone.</p> + +<p>The beast did not slacken pace. It was as though it thought it could +outrun the alien, bloody thing that clung to its back. The last fringes +of the camp shot by and vanished in the gloom, and the clean snow of the +lower valley lay open before it. The creature laid its belly to the +ground and went, the white spray spurting from its heels.</p> + +<p>Stark hung on. His strength was gone now, run out suddenly with the +battle-madness. He became conscious now that he was sick and bleeding, +that his body was one cruel pain. In that moment, more than in the hours +that had gone before, he hated the black leader of the clans of Mekh.</p> + +<p>That flight down the valley became a sort of ugly dream. Stark was aware +of rock walls reeling past, and then they seemed to widen away and the +wind came out of nowhere like the stroke of a great hammer, and he was +on the open moors again.</p> + +<p>The beast began to falter and slow down. Presently it stopped.</p> + +<p>Stark scooped up snow to rub on his wounds. He came near to fainting, +but the bleeding stopped and after that the pain was numbed to a dull +ache. He wrapped the cloak around him and urged the beast to go on, +gently this time, patiently, and after it had breathed it obeyed him, +settling into the shuffling pace it could keep up for hours.</p> + +<p>He was three days on the moors. Part of the time he rode in a sort of +stupor, and part of the time he was feverishly alert, watching the +skyline. Frequently he took the shapes of thrusting rocks for riders, +and found what cover he could until he was sure they did not move. He +was afraid to dismount, for the beast had no bridle. When it halted to +rest he remained upon its back, shaking, his brow beaded with sweat.</p> + +<p>The wind scoured his tracks clean as soon as he made them. Twice, in the +distance, he did see riders, and one of those times he burrowed into a +tall drift and stayed there for several hours.</p> + +<p>The ruined towers marched with him across the bitter land, lonely giants +fifty miles apart. He did not go near them.</p> + +<p>He knew that he wandered a good bit, but he could not help it, and it +was probably his salvation. In those tortured badlands, riven by ages of +frost and flood, one might follow a man on a straight track between two +points. But to find a single rider lost in that wilderness was a matter +of sheer luck, and the odds were with Stark.</p> + +<p>One evening at sunset he came out upon a plain that sloped upward to a +black and towering scarp, notched with a single pass.</p> + +<p>The light was level and blood-red, glittering on the frosty rock so that +it seemed the throat of the pass was aflame with evil fires. To Stark's +mind, essentially primitive and stripped now of all its acquired reason, +that narrow cleft appeared as the doorway to the dwelling place of +demons as horrible as the fabled creatures that roam the Darkside of his +native world.</p> + +<p>He looked long at the Gates of Death, and a dark memory crept into his +brain. Memory of that nightmare experience when the talisman had made +him seem to walk into that frightful pass, not as Stark, but as Ban +Cruach.</p> + +<p>He remembered Otar's words—<i>I have seen Ban Cruach the mighty</i>. Was he +still there beyond those darkling gates, fighting his unimagined war, +alone?</p> + +<p>Again, in memory, Stark heard the evil piping of the wind. Again, the +shadow of a dim and terrible shape loomed up before him....</p> + +<p>He forced remembrance of that vision from his mind, by a great effort. +He could not turn back now. There was no place to go.</p> + +<p>His weary beast plodded on, and now Stark saw as in a dream that a great +walled city stood guard before that awful Gate. He watched the city +glide toward him through a crimson haze, and fancied he could see the +ages clustered like birds around the towers.</p> + +<p>He had reached Kushat, with the talisman of Ban Cruach still strapped in +the blood-stained belt around his waist.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2> + + +<p>He stood in a large square, lined about with huckster's stalls and the +booths of wine-sellers. Beyond were buildings, streets, a city. Stark +got a blurred impression of a grand and brooding darkness, bulking huge +against the mountains, as bleak and proud as they, and quite as ancient, +with many ruins and deserted quarters.</p> + +<p>He was not sure how he had come there, but he was standing on his own +feet, and someone was pouring sour wine into his mouth. He drank it +greedily. There were people around him, jostling, chattering, demanding +answers to their questions. A girl's voice said sharply, "Let him be! +Can't you see he's hurt?"</p> + +<p>Stark looked down. She was slim and ragged, with black hair and large +eyes yellow as a cat's. She held a leather bottle in her hands. She +smiled at him and said, "I'm Thanis. Will you drink more wine?"</p> + +<p>"I will," said Stark, and did, and then said, "Thank you, Thanis." He +put his hand on her shoulder, to steady himself. It was a supple +shoulder, surprisingly strong. He liked the feel of it.</p> + +<p>The crowd was still churning around him, growing larger, and now he +heard the tramp of military feet. A small detachment of men in light +armor pushed their way through.</p> + +<p>A very young officer whose breastplate hurt the eye with brightness +demanded to be told at once who Stark was and why he had come there.</p> + +<p>"No one crosses the moors in winter," he said, as though that in itself +were a sign of evil intent.</p> + +<p>"The clans of Mekh are crossing them," Stark answered. "An army, to take +Kushat—one, two days behind me."</p> + +<p>The crowd picked that up. Excited voices tossed it back and forth, and +clamored for more news. Stark spoke to the officer.</p> + +<p>"I will see your captain, and at once."</p> + +<p>"You'll see the inside of a prison, more likely!" snapped the young man. +"What's this nonsense about the clans of Mekh?"</p> + +<p>Stark regarded him. He looked so long and so curiously that the crowd +began to snicker and the officer's beardless face flushed pink to the +ears.</p> + +<p>"I have fought in many wars," said Stark gently. "And long ago I learned +to listen, when someone came to warn me of attack."</p> + +<p>"Better take him to the captain, Lugh," cried Thanis. "It's our skins +too, you know, if there is war."</p> + +<p>The crowd began to shout. They were all poor folk, wrapped in threadbare +cloaks or tattered leather. They had no love for the guards. And whether +there was war or not, their winter had been long and dull, and they were +going to make the most of this excitement.</p> + +<p>"Take him, Lugh! Let him warn the nobles. Let them think how they'll +defend Kushat and the Gates of Death, now that the talisman is gone!"</p> + +<p>"That is a lie!" Lugh shouted. "And you know the penalty for telling it. +Hold your tongues, or I'll have you all whipped." He gestured angrily at +Stark. "See if he is armed."</p> + +<p>One of the soldiers stepped forward, but Stark was quicker. He slipped +the thong and let the cloak fall, baring his upper body.</p> + +<p>"The clansmen have already taken everything I owned," he said. "But they +gave me something, in return."</p> + +<p>The crowd stared at the half healed stripes that scarred him, and there +was a drawing in of breath.</p> + +<p>The soldier picked up the cloak and laid it over the Earthman's +shoulders. And Lugh said sullenly, "Come, then."</p> + +<p>Stark's fingers tightened on Thanis' shoulder. "Come with me, little +one," he whispered. "Otherwise, I must crawl."</p> + +<p>She smiled at him and came. The crowd followed.</p> + +<p>The captain of the guards was a fleshy man with a smell of wine about +him and a face already crumbling apart though his hair was not yet grey. +He sat in a squat tower above the square, and he observed Stark with no +particular interest.</p> + +<p>"You had something to tell," said Lugh. "Tell it."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Stark told them, leaving out all mention of Camar and the talisman. This +was neither the time nor the man to hear that story. The captain +listened to all he had to say about the gathering of the clans of Mekh, +and then sat studying him with a bleary shrewdness.</p> + +<p>"You have proof of all this?"</p> + +<p>"These stripes. Their leader Ciaran ordered them laid on himself."</p> + +<p>The captain sighed, and leaned back.</p> + +<p>"Any wandering band of hunters could have scourged you," he said. "A +nameless vagabond from the gods know where, and a lawless one at that, +if I'm any judge of men—you probably deserved it."</p> + +<p>He reached for wine, and smiled. "Look you, stranger. In the Norlands, +no one makes war in the winter. And no one ever heard of Ciaran. If you +hoped for a reward from the city, you overshot badly."</p> + +<p>"The Lord Ciaran," said Stark, grimly controlling his anger, "will be +battering at your gates within two days. And you will hear of him then."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps. You can wait for him—in a cell. And you can leave Kushat with +the first caravan after the thaw. We have enough rabble here without +taking in more."</p> + +<p>Thanis caught Stark by the cloak and held him back.</p> + +<p>"<i>Sir</i>," she said, as though it were an unclean word. "I will vouch for +the stranger."</p> + +<p>The captain glanced at her. "You?"</p> + +<p>"Sir, I am a free citizen of Kushat. According to law, I may vouch for +him."</p> + +<p>"If you scum of the Thieves' Quarter would practice the law as well as +you prate it, we would have less trouble," growled the captain. "Very +well, take the creature, if you want him. I don't suppose you've +anything to lose."</p> + +<p>Lugh laughed.</p> + +<p>"Name and dwelling place," said the captain, and wrote them down. +"Remember, he is not to leave the Quarter."</p> + +<p>Thanis nodded. "Come," she said to Stark. He did not move, and she +looked up at him. He was staring at the captain. His beard had grown in +these last days, and his face was still scarred by Thord's blows and +made wolfish with pain and fever. And now, out of this evil mask, his +eyes were peering with a chill and terrible intensity at the +soft-bellied man who sat and mocked him.</p> + +<p>Thanis laid her hand on his rough cheek. "Come," she said. "Come and +rest."</p> + +<p>Gently she turned his head. He blinked and swayed, and she took him +around the waist and led him unprotesting to the door.</p> + +<p>There she paused, looking back.</p> + +<p>"Sir," she said, very meekly, "news of this attack is being shouted +through the Quarter now. If it <i>should</i> come, and it were known that you +had the warning and did not pass it on...." She made an expressive +gesture, and went out.</p> + +<p>Lugh glanced uneasily at the captain. "She's right, sir. If by chance +the man did tell the truth...."</p> + +<p>The captain swore. "Rot. A rogue's tale. And yet...." He scowled +indecisively, and then reached for parchment. "After all, it's a simple +thing. Write it up, pass it on, and let the nobles do the worrying."</p> + +<p>His pen began to scratch.</p> + +<p>Thanis took Stark by steep and narrow ways, darkling now in the +afterglow, where the city climbed and fell again over the uneven rock. +Stark was aware of the heavy smells of spices and unfamiliar foods, and +the musky undertones of a million generations swarmed together to spawn +and die in these crowded catacombs of slate and stone.</p> + +<p>There was a house, blending into other houses, close under the loom of +the great Wall. There was a flight of steps, hollowed deep with use, +twisting crazily around outer corners.</p> + +<p>There was a low room, and a slender man named Balin, vaguely glimpsed, +who said he was Thanis' brother. There was a bed of skins and woven +cloths.</p> + +<p>Stark slept.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Hands and voices called him back. Strong hands shaking him, urgent +voices. He started up growling, like an animal suddenly awaked, still +lost in the dark mists of exhaustion. Balin swore, and caught his +fingers away.</p> + +<p>"What is this you have brought home, Thanis? By the gods, it snapped at +me!"</p> + +<p>Thanis ignored him. "Stark," she said. "Stark! Listen. Men are coming. +Soldiers. They will question you. Do you hear me?"</p> + +<p>Stark said heavily, "I hear."</p> + +<p>"<i>Do not speak of Camar!</i>"</p> + +<p>Stark got to his feet, and Balin said hastily, "Peace! The thing is +safe. I would not steal a death warrant!"</p> + +<p>His voice had a ring of truth. Stark sat down again. It was an effort to +keep awake. There was clamor in the street below. It was still night.</p> + +<p>Balin said carefully, "Tell them what you told the captain, nothing +more. They will kill you if they know."</p> + +<p>A rough hand thundered at the door, and a voice cried, "Open up!"</p> + +<p>Balin sauntered over to lift the bar. Thanis sat beside Stark, her hand +touching his. Stark rubbed his face. He had been shaved and washed, his +wounds rubbed with salve. The belt was gone, and his blood-stained +clothing. He realized only then that he was naked, and drew a cloth +around him. Thanis whispered, "The belt is there on that peg, under your +cloak."</p> + +<p>Balin opened the door, and the room was full of men.</p> + +<p>Stark recognized the captain. There were others, four of them, young, +old, intermediate, annoyed at being hauled away from their beds and +their gaming tables at this hour. The sixth man wore the jewelled +cuirass of a noble. He had a nice, a kind face. Grey hair, mild eyes, +soft cheeks. A fine man, but ludicrous in the trappings of a soldier.</p> + +<p>"Is this the man?" he asked, and the captain nodded.</p> + +<p>"Yes." It was his turn to say Sir.</p> + +<p>Balin brought a chair. He had a fine flourish about him. He wore a +crimson jewel in his left ear, and every line of him was quick and +sensitive, instinct with mockery. His eyes were brightly cynical, in a +face worn lean with years of merry sinning. Stark liked him.</p> + +<p>He was a civilized man. They all were—the noble, the captain, the lot +of them. So civilized that the origins of their culture were forgotten +half an age before the first clay brick was laid in Babylon.</p> + +<p>Too civilized, Stark thought. Peace had drawn their fangs and cut their +claws. He thought of the wild clansmen coming fast across the snow, and +felt a certain pity for the men of Kushat.</p> + +<p>The noble sat down.</p> + +<p>"This is a strange tale you bring, wanderer. I would hear it from your +own lips."</p> + +<p>Stark told it. He spoke slowly, watching every word, cursing the +weariness that fogged his brain.</p> + +<p>The noble, who was called Rogain, asked him questions. Where was the +camp? How many men? What were the exact words of the Lord Ciaran, and +who was he?</p> + +<p>Stark answered, with meticulous care.</p> + +<p>Rogain sat for some time lost in thought. He seemed worried and upset, +one hand playing aimlessly with the hilt of his sword. A scholar's hand, +without a callous on it.</p> + +<p>"There is one thing more," said Rogain. "What business had you on the +moors in winter?"</p> + +<p>Stark smiled. "I am a wanderer by profession."</p> + +<p>"Outlaw?" asked the captain, and Stark shrugged.</p> + +<p>"Mercenary is a kinder word."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Rogain studied the pattern of stripes on the Earthman's dark skin. "Why +did the Lord Ciaran, so-called, order you scourged?"</p> + +<p>"I had thrashed one of his chieftains."</p> + +<p>Rogain sighed and rose. He stood regarding Stark from under brooding +brows, and at length he said, "It is a wild tale. I can't believe +it—and yet, why should you lie?"</p> + +<p>He paused, as though hoping that Stark would answer that and relieve him +of worry.</p> + +<p>Stark yawned. "The tale is easily proved. Wait a day or two."</p> + +<p>"I will arm the city," said Rogain. "I dare not do otherwise. But I will +tell you this." An astonishing unpleasant look came into his eyes. "If +the attack does not come—if you have set a whole city by the ears for +nothing—I will have you flayed alive and your body tumbled over the +Wall for the carrion birds to feed on."</p> + +<p>He strode out, taking his retinue with him. Balin smiled. "He will do +it, too," he said, and dropped the bar.</p> + +<p>Stark did not answer. He stared at Balin, and then at Thanis, and then +at the belt hanging on the peg, in a curiously blank and yet penetrating +fashion, like an animal that thinks its own thoughts. He took a deep +breath. Then, as though he found the air clean of danger, he rolled over +and went instantly to sleep.</p> + +<p>Balin lifted his shoulders expressively. He grinned at Thanis. "Are you +positive it's human?"</p> + +<p>"He's beautiful," said Thanis, and tucked the cloths around him. "Hold +your tongue." She continued to sit there, watching Stark's face as the +slow dreams moved across it. Balin laughed.</p> + +<p>It was evening again when Stark awoke. He sat up, stretching lazily. +Thanis crouched by the hearthstone, stirring something savory in a +blackened pot. She wore a red kirtle and a necklet of beaten gold, and +her hair was combed out smooth and shining.</p> + +<p>She smiled at him and rose, bringing him his own boots and trousers, +carefully cleaned, and a tunic of leather tanned fine and soft as silk. +Stark asked her where she got it.</p> + +<p>"Balin stole it—from the baths where the nobles go. He said you might +as well have the best." She laughed. "He had a devil of a time finding +one big enough to fit you."</p> + +<p>She watched with unashamed interest while he dressed. Stark said, "Don't +burn the soup."</p> + +<p>She put her tongue out at him. "Better be proud of that fine hide while +you have it," she said. "There's no sign of attack."</p> + +<p>Stark was aware of sounds that had not been there before—the pacing of +men on the Wall above the house, the calling of the watch. Kushat was +armed and ready—and his time was running out. He hoped that Ciaran had +not been delayed on the moors.</p> + +<p>Thanis said, "I should explain about the belt. When Balin undressed you, +he saw Camar's name scratched on the inside of the boss. And, he can +open a lizard's egg without harming the shell."</p> + +<p>"What about you?" asked Stark.</p> + +<p>She flexed her supple fingers. "I do well enough."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Balin came in. He had been seeking news, but there was little to be had.</p> + +<p>"The soldiers are grumbling about a false alarm," he said. "The people +are excited, but more as though they were playing a game. Kushat has not +fought a war for centuries." He sighed. "The pity of it is, Stark, I +believe your story. And I'm afraid."</p> + +<p>Thanis handed him a steaming bowl. "Here—employ your tongue with this. +Afraid, indeed! Have you forgotten the Wall? No one has carried it since +the city was built. Let them attack!"</p> + +<p>Stark was amused. "For a child, you know much concerning war."</p> + +<p>"I knew enough to save your skin!" she flared, and Balin smiled.</p> + +<p>"She has you there, Stark. And speaking of skins...." He glanced up at +the belt. "Or better, speaking of talismans, which we were not. How did +you come by it?"</p> + +<p>Stark told him. "He had a sin on his soul, did Camar. And—he was my +friend."</p> + +<p>Balin looked at him with deep respect. "You were a fool," he said. "Look +you. The thing is returned to Kushat. Your promise is kept. There is +nothing for you here but danger, and were I you I would not wait to be +flayed, or slain, or taken in a quarrel that is not yours."</p> + +<p>"Ah," said Stark softly, "but it is mine. The Lord Ciaran made it so." +He, too, glanced at the belt. "What of the talisman?"</p> + +<p>"Return it where it came from," Thanis said. "My brother is a better +thief than Camar. He can certainly do that."</p> + +<p>"No!" said Balin, with surprising force. "We will keep it, Stark and I. +Whether it has power, I do not know. But if it has—I think Kushat will +need it, and in strong hands."</p> + +<p>Stark said somberly, "It has power, the Talisman. Whether for good or +evil, I don't know."</p> + +<p>They looked at him, startled. But a touch of awe seemed to repress their +curiosity.</p> + +<p>He could not tell them. He was, somehow, reluctant to tell anyone of +that dark vision of what lay beyond the Gates of Death, which the +talisman of Ban Cruach had lent him.</p> + +<p>Balin stood up. "Well, for good or evil, at least the sacred relic of +Ban Cruach has come home." He yawned. "I am going to bed. Will you come, +Thanis, or will you stay and quarrel with our guest?"</p> + +<p>"I will stay," she said, "and quarrel."</p> + +<p>"Ah, well." Balin sighed puckishly. "Good night." He vanished into an +inner room. Stark looked at Thanis. She had a warm mouth, and her eyes +were beautiful, and full of light.</p> + +<p>He smiled, holding out his hand.</p> + +<p>The night wore on, and Stark lay drowsing. Thanis had opened the +curtains. Wind and moonlight swept together into the room, and she stood +leaning upon the sill, above the slumbering city. The smile that +lingered in the corners of her mouth was sad and far-away, and very +tender.</p> + +<p>Stark stirred uneasily, making small sounds in his throat. His motions +grew violent. Thanis crossed the room and touched him.</p> + +<p>Instantly he was awake.</p> + +<p>"Animal," she said softly. "You dream."</p> + +<p>Stark shook his head. His eyes were still clouded, though not with +sleep. "Blood," he said, "heavy in the wind."</p> + +<p>"I smell nothing but the dawn," she said, and laughed.</p> + +<p>Stark rose. "Get Balin. I'm going up on the Wall."</p> + +<p>She did not know him now. "What is it, Stark? What's wrong?"</p> + +<p>"Get Balin." Suddenly it seemed that the room stifled him. He caught up +his cloak and Camar's belt and flung open the door, standing on the +narrow steps outside. The moonlight caught in his eyes, pale as +frost-fire.</p> + +<p>Thanis shivered. Balin joined her without being called. He, too, had +slept but lightly. Together they followed Stark up the rough-cut stair +that led to the top of the Wall.</p> + +<p>He looked southward, where the plain ran down from the mountains and +spread away below Kushat. Nothing moved out there. Nothing marred the +empty whiteness. But Stark said,</p> + +<p>"They will attack at dawn."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h2> + + +<p>They waited. Some distance away a guard leaned against the parapet, +huddled in his cloak. He glanced at them incuriously. It was bitterly +cold. The wind came whistling down through the Gates of Death, and below +in the streets the watchfires shuddered and flared.</p> + +<p>They waited, and still there was nothing.</p> + +<p>Balin said impatiently, "How can you know they're coming?"</p> + +<p>Stark shivered, a shallow rippling of the flesh that had nothing to do +with cold, and every muscle of his body came alive. Phobos plunged +downward. The moonlight dimmed and changed, and the plain was very +empty, very still.</p> + +<p>"They will wait for darkness. They will have an hour or so, between +moonset and dawn."</p> + +<p>Thanis muttered, "Dreams! Besides, I'm cold." She hesitated, and then +crept in under Balin's cloak. Stark had gone away from her. She watched +him sulkily where he leaned upon the stone. He might have been part of +it, as dark and unstirring.</p> + +<p>Deimos sank low toward the west.</p> + +<p>Stark turned his head, drawn inevitably to look toward the cliffs above +Kushat, soaring upward to blot out half the sky. Here, close under them, +they seemed to tower outward in a curving mass, like the last wave of +eternity rolling down, crested white with the ash of shattered worlds.</p> + +<p><i>I have stood beneath those cliffs before. I have felt them leaning down +to crush me, and I have been afraid.</i></p> + +<p>He was still afraid. The mind that had poured its memories into that +crystal lens had been dead a million years, but neither time nor death +had dulled the terror that beset Ban Cruach in his journey through that +nightmare pass.</p> + +<p>He looked into the black and narrow mouth of the Gates of Death, +cleaving the scarp like a wound, and the primitive ape-thing within him +cringed and moaned, oppressed with a sudden sense of fate.</p> + +<p>He had come painfully across half a world, to crouch before the Gates of +Death. Some evil magic had let him see forbidden things, had linked his +mind in an unholy bond with the long-dead mind of one who had been half +a god. These evil miracles had not been for nothing. He would not be +allowed to go unscathed.</p> + +<p>He drew himself up sharply then, and swore. He had left N'Chaka behind, +a naked boy running in a place of rocks and sun on Mercury. He had +become Eric John Stark, a man, and civilized. He thrust the senseless +premonition from him, and turned his back upon the mountains.</p> + +<p>Deimos touched the horizon. A last gleam of reddish light tinged the +snow, and then was gone.</p> + +<p>Thanis, who was half asleep, said with sudden irritation, "I do not +believe in your barbarians. I'm going home." She thrust Balin aside and +went away, down the steps.</p> + +<p>The plain was now in utter darkness, under the faint, far Northern +stars.</p> + +<p>Stark settled himself against the parapet. There was a sort of timeless +patience about him. Balin envied it. He would have liked to go with +Thanis. He was cold and doubtful, but he stayed.</p> + +<p>Time passed, endless minutes of it, lengthening into what seemed hours.</p> + +<p>Stark said, "Can you hear them?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"They come." His hearing, far keener than Balin's, picked up the little +sounds, the vast inchoate rustling of an army on the move in stealth and +darkness. Light-armed men, hunters, used to stalking wild beasts in the +show. They could move softly, very softly.</p> + +<p>"I hear nothing," Balin said, and again they waited.</p> + +<p>The westering stars moved toward the horizon, and at length in the east +a dim pallor crept across the sky.</p> + +<p>The plain was still shrouded in night, but now Stark could make out the +high towers of the King City of Kushat, ghostly and indistinct—the +ancient, proud high towers of the rulers and their nobles, set above the +crowded Quarters of merchants and artisans and thieves. He wondered who +would be king in Kushat by the time this unrisen sun had set.</p> + +<p>"You were wrong," said Balin, peering. "There is nothing on the plain."</p> + +<p>Stark said, "Wait."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Swiftly now, in the thin air of Mars, the dawn came with a rush and a +leap, flooding the world with harsh light. It flashed in cruel +brilliance from sword-blades, from spearheads, from helmets and +burnished mail, from the war-harness of beasts, glistened on bare russet +heads and coats of leather, set the banners of the clans to burning, +crimson and gold and green, bright against the snow.</p> + +<p>There was no sound, not a whisper, in all the land.</p> + +<p>Somewhere a hunting horn sent forth one deep cry to split the morning. +Then burst out the wild skirling of the mountain pipes and the broken +thunder of drums, and a wordless scream of exultation that rang back +from the Wall of Kushat like the very voice of battle. The men of Mekh +began to move.</p> + +<p>Raggedly, slowly at first, then more swiftly as the press of warriors +broke and flowed, the barbarians swept toward the city as water sweeps +over a broken dam.</p> + +<p>Knots and clumps of men, tall men running like deer, leaping, shouting, +swinging their great brands. Riders, spurring their mounts until they +fled belly down. Spears, axes, sword-blades tossing, a sea of men and +beasts, rushing, trampling, shaking the ground with the thunder of their +going.</p> + +<p>And ahead of them all came a solitary figure in black mail, riding a +raking beast trapped all in black, and bearing a sable axe.</p> + +<p>Kushat came to life. There was a swarming and a yelling in the streets, +and soldiers began to pour up onto the Wall. A thin company, Stark +thought, and shook his head. Mobs of citizens choked the alleys, and +every rooftop was full. A troop of nobles went by, brave in their bright +mail, to take up their post in the square by the great gate.</p> + +<p>Balin said nothing, and Stark did not disturb his thoughts. From the +look of him, they were dark indeed.</p> + +<p>Soldiers came and ordered them off the Wall. They went back to their +own roof, where they were joined by Thanis. She was in a high state of +excitement, but unafraid.</p> + +<p>"Let them attack!" she said. "Let them break their spears against the +Wall. They will crawl away again."</p> + +<p>Stark began to grow restless. Up in their high emplacements, the big +ballistas creaked and thrummed. The muted song of the bows became a +wailing hum. Men fell, and were kicked off the ledges by their fellows. +The blood-howl of the clans rang unceasing on the frosty air, and Stark +heard the rap of scaling ladders against stone.</p> + +<p>Thanis said abruptly, "What is that—that sound like thunder?"</p> + +<p>"Rams," he answered. "They are battering the gate."</p> + +<p>She listened, and Stark saw in her face the beginning of fear.</p> + +<p>It was a long fight. Stark watched it hungrily from the roof all that +morning. The soldiers of Kushat did bravely and well, but they were as +folded sheep against the tall killers of the mountains. By noon the +officers were beating the Quarters for men to replace the slain.</p> + +<p>Stark and Balin went up again, onto the Wall.</p> + +<p>The clans had suffered. Their dead lay in windrows under the Wall, amid +the broken ladders. But Stark knew his barbarians. They had sat restless +and chafing in the valley for many days, and now the battle-madness was +on them and they were not going to be stopped.</p> + +<p>Wave after wave of them rolled up, and was cast back, and came on again +relentlessly. The intermittent thunder boomed still from the gates, +where sweating giants swung the rams under cover of their own bowmen. +And everywhere, up and down through the forefront of the fighting, rode +the man in black armor, and wild cheering followed him.</p> + +<p>Balin said heavily, "It is the end of Kushat."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>A ladder banged against the stones a few feet away. Men swarmed up the +rungs, fierce-eyed clansmen with laughter in their mouths. Stark was +first at the head.</p> + +<p>They had given him a spear. He spitted two men through with it and lost +it, and a third man came leaping over the parapet. Stark received him +into his arms.</p> + +<p>Balin watched. He saw the warrior go crashing back, sweeping his fellows +off the ladder. He saw Stark's face. He heard the sounds and smelled the +blood and sweat of war, and he was sick to the marrow of his bones, and +his hatred of the barbarians was a terrible thing.</p> + +<p>Stark caught up a dead man's blade, and within ten minutes his arm was +as red as a butcher's. And ever he watched the winged helm that went +back and forth below, a standard to the clans.</p> + +<p>By mid-afternoon the barbarians had gained the Wall in three places. +They spread inward along the ledges, pouring up in a resistless tide, +and the defenders broke. The rout became a panic.</p> + +<p>"It's all over now," Stark said. "Find Thanis, and hide her."</p> + +<p>Balin let fall his sword. "Give me the talisman," he whispered, and +Stark saw that he was weeping. "Give it me, and I will go beyond the +Gates of Death and rouse Ban Cruach from his sleep. And if he has +forgotten Kushat, I will take his power into my own hands. I will fling +wide the Gates of Death and loose destruction on the men of Mekh—or if +the legends are all lies, then I will die."</p> + +<p>He was like a man crazed. "Give me the talisman!"</p> + +<p>Stark slapped him, carefully and without heat, across the face. "Get +your sister, Balin. Hide her, unless you would be uncle to a red-haired +brat."</p> + +<p>He went then, like a man who has been stunned. Screaming women with +their children clogged the ways that led inward from the Wall, and there +was bloody work afoot on the rooftops and in the narrow alleys.</p> + +<p>The gate was holding, still.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Stark forced his way toward the square. The booths of the hucksters were +overthrown, the wine-jars broken and the red wine spilled. Beasts +squealed and stamped, tired of their chafing harness, driven wild by the +shouting and the smell of blood. The dead were heaped high where they +had fallen from above.</p> + +<p>They were all soldiers here, clinging grimly to their last foothold. The +deep song of the rams shook the very stones. The iron-sheathed timbers +of the gate gave back an answering scream, and toward the end all other +sounds grew hushed. The nobles came down slowly from the Wall and +mounted, and sat waiting.</p> + +<p>There were fewer of them now. Their bright armor was dented and stained, +and their faces had a pallor on them.</p> + +<p>One last hammer-stroke of the rams.</p> + +<p>With a bitter shriek the weakened bolts tore out, and the great gate was +broken through.</p> + +<p>The nobles of Kushat made their first, and final charge.</p> + +<p>As soldiers they went up against the riders of Mekh, and as soldiers +they held them until they died. Those that were left were borne back +into the square, caught as in the crest of an avalanche. And first +through the gates came the winged battle-mask of the Lord Ciaran, and +the sable axe that drank men's lives where it hewed.</p> + +<p>There was a beast with no rider to claim it, tugging at its headrope. +Stark swung onto the saddle pad and cut it free. Where the press was +thickest, a welter of struggling brutes and men fighting knee to knee, +there was the man in black armor, riding like a god, magnificent, born +to war. Stark's eyes shone with a strange, cold light. He struck his +heels hard into the scaly flanks. The beast plunged forward.</p> + +<p>In and over and through, making the long sword sing. The beast was +strong, and frightened beyond fear. It bit and trampled, and Stark cut a +path for them, and presently he shouted above the din,</p> + +<p>"Ho, there! <i>Ciaran!</i>"</p> + +<p>The black mask turned toward him, and the remembered voice spoke from +behind the barred slot, joyously.</p> + +<p>"The wanderer. The wild man!"</p> + +<p>Their two mounts shocked together. The axe came down in a whistling +curve, and a red sword-blade flashed to meet it. Swift, swift, a ringing +clash of steel, and the blade was shattered and the axe fallen to the +ground.</p> + +<p>Stark pressed in.</p> + +<p>Ciaran reached for his sword, but his hand was numbed by the force of +that blow and he was slow, a split second. The hilt of Stark's weapon, +still clutched in his own numbed grip, fetched him a stunning blow on +the helm, so that the metal rang like a flawed bell.</p> + +<p>The Lord Ciaran reeled back, only for a moment, but long enough. Stark +grasped the war-mask and ripped it off, and got his hands around the +naked throat.</p> + +<p>He did not break that neck, as he had planned. And the Clansmen who had +started in to save their leader stopped and did not move.</p> + +<p>Stark knew now why the Lord Ciaran had never shown his face.</p> + +<p>The throat he held was white and strong, and his hands around it were +buried in a mane of red-gold hair that fell down over the shirt of mail. +A red mouth passionate with fury, wonderful curving bone under +sculptured flesh, eyes fierce and proud and tameless as the eyes of a +young eagle, fire-blue, defying him, hating him....</p> + +<p>"By the gods," said Stark, very softly. "By the eternal gods!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI</h2> + +<p>A woman! And in that moment of amazement, she was quicker than he.</p> + +<p>There was nothing to warn him, no least flicker of expression. Her two +fists came up together between his outstretched arms and caught him +under the jaw with a force that nearly snapped his neck. He went over +backward, clean out of the saddle, and lay sprawled on the bloody +stones, half stunned, the wind knocked out of him.</p> + +<p>The woman wheeled her mount. Bending low, she took up the axe from where +it had fallen, and faced her warriors, who were as dazed as Stark.</p> + +<p>"I have led you well," she said. "I have taken you Kushat. Will any man +dispute me?"</p> + +<p>They knew the axe, if they did not know her. They looked from side to +side uneasily, completely at a loss, and Stark, still gasping on the +ground, thought that he had never seen anything as proud and beautiful +as she was then in her black mail, with her bright hair blowing and her +glance like blue lightning.</p> + +<p>The nobles of Kushat chose that moment to charge. This strange unmasking +of the Mekhish lord had given them time to rally, and now they thought +that the Gods had wrought a miracle to help them. They found hope, where +they had lost everything but courage.</p> + +<p>"A wench!" they cried. "A strumpet of the camps. <i>A woman!</i>"</p> + +<p>They howled it like an epithet, and tore into the barbarians.</p> + +<p>She who had been the Lord Ciaran drove the spurs in deep, so that the +beast leaped forward screaming. She went, and did not look to see if any +had followed, in among the men of Kushat. And the great axe rose and +fell, and rose again.</p> + +<p>She killed three, and left two others bleeding on the stones, and not +once did she look back.</p> + +<p>The clansmen found their tongues.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ciaran! Ciaran!</i>"</p> + +<p>The crashing shout drowned out the sound of battle. As one man, they +turned and followed her.</p> + +<p>Stark, scrambling for his life underfoot, could not forbear smiling. +Their childlike minds could see only two alternatives—to slay her out +of hand, or to worship her. They had chosen to worship. He thought the +bards would be singing of the Lord Ciaran of Mekh as long as there were +men to listen.</p> + +<p>He managed to take cover behind a wrecked booth, and presently make his +way out of the square. They had forgotten him, for the moment. He did +not wish to wait, just then, until they—or she—remembered.</p> + +<p>She.</p> + +<p>He still did not believe it, quite. He touched the bruise under his jaw +where she had struck him, and thought of the lithe, swift strength of +her, and the way she had ridden alone into battle. He remembered the +death of Thord, and how she had kept her red wolves tamed, and he was +filled with wonder, and a deep excitement.</p> + +<p>He remembered what she had said to him once—<i>We are of one blood, +though we be strangers.</i></p> + +<p>He laughed, silently, and his eyes were very bright.</p> + +<p>The tide of war had rolled on toward the King City, where from the sound +of it there was hot fighting around the castle. Eddies of the main +struggle swept shrieking through the streets, but the rat-runs under the +Wall were clear. Everyone had stampeded inward, the victims with the +victors close on their heels. The short northern day was almost gone.</p> + +<p>He found a hiding place that offered reasonable safety, and settled +himself to wait.</p> + +<p>Night came, but he did not move. From the sounds that reached him, the +sacking of Kushat was in full swing. They were looting the richer +streets first. Their upraised voices were thick with wine, and mingled +with the cries of women. The reflection of many fires tinged the sky.</p> + +<p>By midnight the sounds began to slacken, and by the second hour after +the city slept, drugged with wine and blood and the weariness of battle. +Stark went silently out into the streets, toward the King City.</p> + +<p>According to the immemorial pattern of Martian city-states, the castles +of the king and the noble families were clustered together in solitary +grandeur. Many of the towers were fallen now, the great halls open to +the sky. Time had crushed the grandeur that had been Kushat, more +fatally than the boots of any conqueror.</p> + +<p>In the house of the king, the flamboys guttered low and the chieftains +of Mekh slept with their weary pipers among the benches of the banquet +hall. In the niches of the tall, carved portal, the guards nodded over +their spears. They, too, had fought that day. Even so, Stark did not go +near them.</p> + +<p>Shivering slightly in the bitter wind, he followed the bulk of the +massive walls until he found a postern door, half open as some kitchen +knave had left it in his flight. Stark entered, moving like a shadow.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The passageway was empty, dimly lighted by a single torch. A stairway +branched off from it, and he climbed that, picking his way by guess and +his memories of similar castles he had seen in the past.</p> + +<p>He emerged into a narrow hall, obviously for the use of servants. A +tapestry closed the end, stirring in the chill draught that blew along +the floor. He peered around it, and saw a massive, vaulted corridor, the +stone walls panelled in wood much split and blackened by time, but still +showing forth the wonderful carvings of beasts and men, larger than life +and overlaid with gold and bright enamel.</p> + +<p>From the corridor a single doorway opened—and Otar slept before it, +curled on a pallet like a dog.</p> + +<p>Stark went back down the narrow hall. He was sure that there must be a +back entrance to the king's chambers, and he found the little door he +was looking for.</p> + +<p>From there on was darkness. He felt his way, stepping with infinite +caution, and presently there was a faint gleam of light filtering around +the edges of another curtain of heavy tapestry.</p> + +<p>He crept toward it, and heard a man's slow breathing on the other side.</p> + +<p>He drew the curtain back, a careful inch. The man was sprawled on a +bench athwart the door. He slept the honest sleep of exhaustion, his +sword in his hand, the stains of his day's work still upon him. He was +alone in the small room. A door in the farther wall was closed.</p> + +<p>Stark hit him, and caught the sword before it fell. The man grunted once +and became utterly relaxed. Stark bound him with his own harness and +shoved a gag in his mouth, and went on, through the door in the opposite +wall.</p> + +<p>The room beyond was large and high and full of shadows. A fire burned +low on the hearth, and the uncertain light showed dimly the hangings and +the rich stuffs that carpeted the floor, and the dark, sparse shapes of +furniture.</p> + +<p>Stark made out the lattice-work of a covered bed, let into the wall +after the northern fashion.</p> + +<p>She was there, sleeping, her red-gold hair the colour of the flames.</p> + +<p>He stood a moment, watching her, and then, as though she sensed his +presence, she stirred and opened her eyes.</p> + +<p>She did not cry out. He had known that she would not. There was no fear +in her. She said, with a kind of wry humor, "I will have a word with my +guards about this."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>She flung aside the covering and rose. She was almost as tall as he, +white-skinned and very straight. He noted the long thighs, the narrow +loins and magnificent shoulders, the small virginal breasts. She moved +as a man moves, without coquetry. A long furred gown, that Stark guessed +had lately graced the shoulders of the king, lay over a chair. She put +it on.</p> + +<p>"Well, wild man?"</p> + +<p>"I have come to warn you." He hesitated over her name, and she said,</p> + +<p>"My mother named me Ciara, if that seems better to you." She gave him +her falcon's glance. "I could have slain you in the square, but now I +think you did me a service. The truth would have come out +sometime—better then, when they had no time to think about it." She +laughed. "They will follow me now, over the edge of the world, if I ask +them."</p> + +<p>Stark said slowly, "Even beyond the Gates of Death?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, there. Above all, there!"</p> + +<p>She turned to one of the tall windows and looked out at the cliffs and +the high notch of the pass, touched with greenish silver by the little +moons.</p> + +<p>"Ban Cruach was a great king. He came out of nowhere to rule the +Norlands with a rod of iron, and men speak of him still as half a god. +Where did he get his power, if not from beyond the Gates of Death? Why +did he go back there at the end of his days, if not to hide away his +secret? Why did he build Kushat to guard the pass forever, if not to +hoard that power out of reach of all the other nations of Mars?</p> + +<p>"Yes, Stark. My men will follow me. And if they do not, I will go +alone."</p> + +<p>"You are not Ban Cruach. Nor am I." He took her by the shoulders. +"Listen, Ciara. You're already king in the Norlands, and half a legend +as you stand. Be content."</p> + +<p>"Content!" Her face was close to his, and he saw the blaze of it, the +white intensity of ambition and an iron pride. "Are you content?" she +asked him. "Have you ever been content?"</p> + +<p>He smiled. "For strangers, we do know each other well. No. But the spurs +are not so deep in me."</p> + +<p>"The wind and the fire. One spends its strength in wandering, the other +devours. But one can help the other. I made you an offer once, and you +said you would not bargain unless you could look into my eyes. Look +now!"</p> + +<p>He did, and his hands upon her shoulders trembled.</p> + +<p>"No," he said harshly. "You're a fool, Ciara. Would you be as Otar, mad +with what you have seen?"</p> + +<p>"Otar is an old man, and likely crazed before he crossed the mountains. +Besides—I am not Otar."</p> + +<p>Stark said somberly, "Even the bravest may break. Ban Cruach +himself...."</p> + +<p>She must have seen the shadow of that horror in his eyes, for he felt +her body tense.</p> + +<p>"What of Ban Cruach? What do you know, Stark? Tell me!"</p> + +<p>He was silent, and she went from him angrily.</p> + +<p>"You have the talisman," she said. "That I am sure of. And if need be, I +will flay you alive to get it!" She faced him across the room. "But +whether I get it or not, I will go through the Gates of Death. I must +wait, now, until after the thaw. The warm wind will blow soon, and the +gorges will be running full. But afterward, I will go, and no talk of +fears and demons will stop me."</p> + +<p>She began to pace the room with long strides, and the full skirts of the +gown made a subtle whispering about her.</p> + +<p>"You do not know," she said, in a low and bitter voice. "I was a +girl-child, without a name. By the time I could walk, I was a servant in +the house of my grandfather. The two things that kept me living were +pride and hate. I left my scrubbing of floors to practice arms with the +young boys. I was beaten for it every day, but every day I went. I knew +even then that only force would free me. And my father was a king's son, +a good man of his hands. His blood was strong in me. I learned."</p> + +<p>She held her head very high. She had earned the right to hold it so. She +finished quietly,</p> + +<p>"I have come a long way. I will not turn back now."</p> + +<p>"Ciara." Stark came and stood before her. "I am talking to you as a +fighting man, an equal. There may be power behind the Gates of Death, I +do not know. But this I have seen—madness, horror, an evil that is +beyond our understanding.</p> + +<p>"I think you will not accuse me of cowardice. And yet I would not go +into that pass for all the power of all the kings of Mars!"</p> + +<p>Once started, he could not stop. The full force of that dark vision of +the talisman swept over him again in memory. He came closer to her, +driven by the need to make her understand.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have the talisman! And I have had a taste of its purpose. I +think Ban Cruach left it as a warning, so that none would follow him. I +have seen the temples and the palaces glitter in the ice. I have seen +the Gates of Death—<i>not with my own eyes, Ciara, but with his. With the +eyes and the memories of Ban Cruach!</i>"</p> + +<p>He had caught her again, his hands strong on her strong arms.</p> + +<p>"Will you believe me, or must you see for yourself—the dreadful things +that walk those buried streets, the shapes that rise from nowhere in the +mists of the pass?"</p> + +<p>Her gaze burned into his. Her breath was hot and sweet upon his lips, +and she was like a sword between his hands, shining and unafraid.</p> + +<p>"Give me the talisman. Let me see!"</p> + +<p>He answered furiously, "You are mad. As mad as Otar." And he kissed her, +in a rage, in a panic lest all that beauty be destroyed—a kiss as +brutal as a blow, that left him shaken.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>She backed away slowly, one step, and he thought she would have killed +him. He said heavily:</p> + +<p>"If you will see, you will. The thing is here."</p> + +<p>He opened the boss and laid the crystal in her outstretched hand. He did +not meet her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Sit down. Hold the flat side against your brow."</p> + +<p>She sat, in a great chair of carven wood. Stark noticed that her hand +was unsteady, her face the colour of white ash. He was glad she did not +have the axe where she could reach it. She did not play at anger.</p> + +<p>For a long moment she studied the intricate lens, the incredible +depository of a man's mind. Then she raised it slowly to her forehead.</p> + +<p>He saw her grow rigid in the chair. How long he watched beside her he +never knew. Seconds, an eternity. He saw her eyes turn blank and +strange, and a shadow came into her face, changing it subtly, altering +the lines, so that it seemed almost a stranger was peering through her +flesh.</p> + +<p>All at once, in a voice that was not her own, she cried out terribly, +"<i>Oh gods of Mars!</i>"</p> + +<p>The talisman dropped rolling to the floor, and Ciara fell forward into +Stark's arms.</p> + +<p>He thought at first that she was dead. He carried her to the bed, in an +agony of fear that surprised him with its violence, and laid her down, +and put his hand over her heart.</p> + +<p>It was beating strongly. Relief that was almost a sickness swept over +him. He turned, searching vaguely for wine, and saw the talisman. He +picked it up and put it back inside the boss. A jewelled flagon stood on +a table across the room. He took it and started back, and then, +abruptly, there was a wild clamor in the hall outside and Otar was +shouting Ciara's name, pounding on the door.</p> + +<p>It was not barred. In another moment they would burst through, and he +knew that they would not stop to enquire what he was doing there.</p> + +<p>He dropped the flagon and went out swiftly, the way he had come. The +guard was still unconscious. In the narrow hall beyond, Stark hesitated. +A woman's voice was rising high above the tumult in the main corridor, +and he thought he recognized it.</p> + +<p>He went to the tapestry curtain and looked for the second time around +its edge.</p> + +<p>The lofty space was full of men, newly wakened from their heavy sleep +and as nervous as so many bears. Thanis struggled in the grip of two of +them. Her scarlet kirtle was torn, her hair flying in wild elf-locks, +and her face was the face of a mad thing. The whole story of the doom of +Kushat was written large upon it.</p> + +<p>She screamed again and again, and would not be silenced.</p> + +<p>"Tell her, the witch that leads you! Tell her that she is already doomed +to death, with all her army!"</p> + +<p>Otar opened up the door of Ciara's room.</p> + +<p>Thanis surged forward. She must have fled through all that castle before +she was caught, and Stark's heart ached for her.</p> + +<p>"You!" she shrieked through the doorway, and poured out all the filth of +the quarter upon Ciara's name. "Balin has gone to bring doom upon you! +He will open wide the Gates of Death, and then you will +die!—die!—<i>die!</i>"</p> + +<p>Stark felt the shock of a terrible dread, as he let the curtain fall. +Mad with hatred against conquerors, Balin had fulfilled his raging +promise and had gone to fling open the Gates of Death.</p> + +<p>Remembering his nightmare vision of the shining, evil ones whom Ban +Cruach had long ago prisoned beyond those gates, Stark felt a sickness +grow within him as he went down the stair and out the postern door.</p> + +<p>It was almost dawn. He looked up at the brooding cliffs, and it seemed +to him that the wind in the pass had a sound of laughter that mocked his +growing dread.</p> + +<p>He knew what he must do, if an ancient, mysterious horror was not to be +released upon Kushat.</p> + +<p><i>I may still catch Balin before he has gone too far! If I don't—</i></p> + +<p>He dared not think of that. He began to walk very swiftly through the +night streets, toward the distant, towering Gates of Death.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII</h2> + + +<p>It was past noon. He had climbed high toward the saddle of the pass. +Kushat lay small below him, and he could see now the pattern of the +gorges, cut ages deep in the living rock, that carried the spring +torrents of the watershed around the mighty ledge on which the city was +built.</p> + +<p>The pass itself was channeled, but only by its own snows and melting +ice. It was too high for a watercourse. Nevertheless, Stark thought, a +man might find it hard to stay alive if he were caught there by the +thaw.</p> + +<p>He had seen nothing of Balin. The gods knew how many hours' start he +had. Stark imagined him, scrambling wild-eyed over the rocks, driven by +the same madness that had sent Thanis up into the castle to call down +destruction on Ciara's head.</p> + +<p>The sun was brilliant but without warmth. Stark shivered, and the icy +wind blew strong. The cliffs hung over him, vast and sheer and crushing, +and the narrow mouth of the pass was before him. He would go no farther. +He would turn back, now.</p> + +<p>But he did not. He began to walk forward, into the Gates of Death.</p> + +<p><i>The light was dim and strange at the bottom of that cleft. Little veils +of mist crept and clung between the ice and the rock, thickened, became +more dense as he went farther and farther into the pass. He could not +see, and the wind spoke with many tongues, piping in the crevices of the +cliffs.</i></p> + +<p>The steps of the Earthman slowed and faltered. He had known fear in his +life before. But now he was carrying the burden of two men's +terrors—Ban Cruach's, and his own.</p> + +<p>He stopped, enveloped in the clinging mist. He tried to reason with +himself—that Ban Cruach's fears had died a million years ago, that Otar +had come this way and lived, and Balin had come also.</p> + +<p>But the thin veneer of civilization sloughed away and left him with the +naked bones of truth. His nostrils twitched to the smell of evil, the +subtle unclean taint that only a beast, or one as close to it as he, can +sense and know. Every nerve was a point of pain, raw with apprehension. +An overpowering recognition of danger, hidden somewhere, mocking at him, +made his very body change, draw in upon itself and flatten forward, so +that when at last he went on again he was more like a four-footed thing +than a man walking upright.</p> + +<p>Infinitely wary, silent, moving surely over the ice and the tumbled +rock, he followed Balin. He had ceased to think. He was going now on +sheer instinct.</p> + +<p>The pass led on and on. It grew darker, and in the dim uncanny twilight +there were looming shapes that menaced him, and ghostly wings that +brushed him, and a terrible stillness that was not broken by the eerie +voices of the wind.</p> + +<p>Rock and mist and ice. Nothing that moved or lived. And yet the sense of +danger deepened, and when he paused the beating of his heart was like +thunder in his ears.</p> + +<p>Once, far away, he thought he heard the echoes of a man's voice crying, +but he had no sight of Balin.</p> + +<p>The pass began to drop, and the twilight deepened into a kind of sickly +night.</p> + +<p>On and down, more slowly now, crouching, slinking, heavily oppressed, +tempted to snarl at boulders and tear at wraiths of fog. He had no idea +of the miles he had travelled. But the ice was thicker now, the cold +intense.</p> + +<p>The rock walls broke off sharply. The mist thinned. The pallid darkness +lifted to a clear twilight. He came to the end of the Gates of Death.</p> + +<p>Stark stopped. Ahead of him, almost blocking the end of the pass, +something dark and high and massive loomed in the thinning mists.</p> + +<p>It was a great cairn, and upon it sat a figure, facing outward from the +Gates of Death as though it kept watch over whatever country lay beyond.</p> + +<p>The figure of a man in antique Martian armor.</p> + +<p>After a moment, Stark crept toward the cairn. He was still almost all +savage, torn between fear and fascination.</p> + +<p>He was forced to scramble over the lower rocks of the cairn itself. +Quite suddenly he felt a hard shock, and a flashing sensation of warmth +that was somehow inside his own flesh, and not in any tempering of the +frozen air. He gave a startled leap forward, and whirled, looking up +into the face of the mailed figure with the confused idea that it had +reached down and struck him.</p> + +<p>It had not moved, of course. And Stark knew, with no need of anyone to +tell him, that he looked into the face of Ban Cruach.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It was a face made for battles and for ruling, the bony ridges harsh and +strong, the hollows under them worn deep with years. Those eyes, dark +shadows under the rusty helm, had dreamed high dreams, and neither age +nor death had conquered them.</p> + +<p>And even in death, Ban Cruach was not unarmed.</p> + +<p>Clad as for battle in his ancient mail, he held upright between his +hands a mighty sword. The pommel was a ball of crystal large as a man's +fist, that held within it a spark of intense brilliance. The little, +blinding flame throbbed with its own force, and the sword-blade blazed +with a white, cruel radiance.</p> + +<p>Ban Cruach, dead but frozen to eternal changelessness by the bitter +cold, sitting here upon his cairn for a million years and warding +forever the inner end of the Gates of Death, as his ancient city of +Kushat warded the outer.</p> + +<p>Stark took two cautious steps closer to Ban Cruach, and felt again the +shock and the flaring heat in his blood. He recoiled, satisfied.</p> + +<p>The strange force in the blazing sword made an invisible barrier across +the mouth of the pass, protected Ban Cruach himself. A barrier of short +waves, he thought, of the type used in deep therapy, having no heat in +themselves but increasing the heat in body cells by increasing their +vibration. But these waves were stronger than any he had known before.</p> + +<p>A barrier, a wall of force, closing the inner end of the Gates of Death. +A barrier that was not designed against man.</p> + +<p>Stark shivered. He turned from the sombre, brooding form of Ban Cruach +and his eyes followed the gaze of the dead king, out beyond the cairn.</p> + +<p>He looked across this forbidden land within the Gates of Death.</p> + +<p>At his back was the mountain barrier. Before him, a handful of miles to +the north, the terminus of the polar cap rose like a cliff of bluish +crystal soaring up to touch the early stars. Locked in between those two +titanic walls was a great valley of ice.</p> + +<p>White and glimmering that valley was, and very still, and very +beautiful, the ice shaped gracefully into curving domes and hollows. +And in the center of it stood a dark tower of stone, a cyclopean bulk +that Stark knew must go down an unguessable distance to its base on the +bedrock. It was like the tower in which Camar had died. But this one was +not a broken ruin. It loomed with alien arrogance, and within its bulk +pallid lights flickered eerily, and it was crowned by a cloud of +shimmering darkness.</p> + +<p><i>It was like the tower of his dread vision, the tower that he had seen, +not as Eric John Stark, but as Ban Cruach!</i></p> + +<p>Stark's gaze dropped slowly from the evil tower to the curving ice of +the valley. And the fear within him grew beyond all bounds.</p> + +<p>He had seen that, too, in his vision. The glimmering ice, the domes and +hollows of it. He had looked down through it at the city that lay +beneath, and he had seen those who came and went in the buried streets.</p> + +<p>Stark hunkered down. For a long while he did not stir.</p> + +<p>He did not want to go out there. He did not want to go out from the +grim, warning figure of Ban Cruach with his blazing sword, into that +silent valley. He was afraid, afraid of what he might see if he went +there and looked down through the ice, afraid of the final dread +fulfillment of his vision.</p> + +<p>But he had come after Balin, and Balin must be out there somewhere. He +did not want to go, but he was himself, and he must.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He went, going very softly, out toward the tower of stone. And there was +no sound in all that land.</p> + +<p>The last of the twilight had faded. The ice gleamed, faintly luminous +under the stars, and there was light beneath it, a soft radiance that +filled all the valley with the glow of a buried moon.</p> + +<p>Stark tried to keep his eyes upon the tower. He did not wish to look +down at what lay under his stealthy feet.</p> + +<p>Inevitably, he looked.</p> + +<p><i>The temples and the palaces glittering in the ice....</i></p> + +<p>Level upon level, going down. Wells of soft light spanned with soaring +bridges, slender spires rising, an endless variation of streets and +crystal walls exquisitely patterned, above and below and overlapping, so +that it was like looking down through a thousand giant snowflakes. A +metropolis of gossamer and frost, fragile and lovely as a dream, locked +in the clear, pure vault of the ice.</p> + +<p>Stark saw the people of the city passing along the bright streets, their +outlines blurred by the icy vault as things are half obscured by water. +The creatures of vision, vaguely shining, infinitely evil.</p> + +<p>He shut his eyes and waited until the shock and the dizziness left him. +Then he set his gaze resolutely on the tower, and crept on, over the +glassy sky that covered those buried streets.</p> + +<p>Silence. Even the wind was hushed.</p> + +<p>He had gone perhaps half the distance when the cry rang out.</p> + +<p>It burst upon the valley with a shocking violence. "<i>Stark! Stark!</i>" The +ice rang with it, curving ridges picked up his name and flung it back +and forth with eerie crystal voices, and the echoes fled out whispering +<i>Stark! Stark!</i> until it seemed that the very mountains spoke.</p> + +<p>Stark whirled about. In the pallid gloom between the ice and the stars +there was light enough to see the cairn behind him, and the dim figure +atop it with the shining sword.</p> + +<p>Light enough to see Ciara, and the dark knot of riders who had followed +her through the Gates of Death.</p> + +<p>She cried his name again. "Come back! Come back!"</p> + +<p>The ice of the valley answered mockingly, "<i>Come back! Come back!</i>" and +Stark was gripped with a terror that held him motionless.</p> + +<p>She should not have called him. She should not have made a sound in that +deathly place.</p> + +<p>A man's hoarse scream rose above the flying echoes. The riders turned +and fled suddenly, the squealing, hissing beasts crowding each other, +floundering wildly on the rocks of the cairn, stampeding back into the +pass.</p> + +<p>Ciara was left alone. Stark saw her fight the rearing beast she rode +and then flung herself out of the saddle and let it go. She came toward +him, running, clad all in her black armor, the great axe swinging high.</p> + +<p>"Behind you, Stark! Oh, gods of Mars!"</p> + +<p>He turned then and saw them, coming out from the tower of stone, the +pale, shining creatures that move so swiftly across the ice, so fleet +and swift that no man living could outrun them.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He shouted to Ciara to turn back. He drew his sword and over his +shoulder he cursed her in a black fury because he could hear her mailed +feet coming on behind him.</p> + +<p><i>The gliding creatures, sleek and slender, reedlike, bending, delicate +as wraiths, their bodies shaped from northern rainbows of amethyst and +rose—if they should touch Ciara, if their loathsome hands should touch +her....</i></p> + +<p>Stark let out one raging catlike scream, and rushed them.</p> + +<p>The opalescent bodies slipped away beyond his reach. The creatures +watched him.</p> + +<p>They had no faces, but they watched. They were eyeless but not blind, +earless, but not without hearing. The inquisitive tendrils that formed +their sensory organs stirred and shifted like the petals of ungodly +flowers, and the color of them was the white frost-fire that dances on +the snow.</p> + +<p>"Go back, Ciara!"</p> + +<p>But she would not go, and he knew that they would not have let her. She +reached him, and they set their backs together. The shining ones ringed +them round, many feet away across the ice, and watched the long sword +and the great hungry axe, and there was something in the lissome swaying +of their bodies that suggested laughter.</p> + +<p>"You fool," said Stark. "You bloody fool."</p> + +<p>"And you?" answered Ciara. "Oh, yes, I know about Balin. That mad girl, +screaming in the palace—she told me, and you were seen from the wall, +climbing to the Gates of Death. I tried to catch you."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>She did not answer that. "They won't fight us, Stark. Do you think we +could make it back to the cairn?"</p> + +<p>"No. But we can try."</p> + +<p>Guarding each others' backs, they began to walk toward Ban Cruach and +the pass. If they could once reach the barrier, they would be safe.</p> + +<p>Stark knew now what Ban Cruach's wall of force was built against. And he +began to guess the riddle of the Gates of Death.</p> + +<p>The shining ones glided with them, out of reach. They did not try to bar +the way. They formed a circle around the man and woman, moving with them +and around them at the same time, an endless weaving chain of many +bodies shining with soft jewel tones of color.</p> + +<p>They drew closer and closer to the cairn, to the brooding figure of Ban +Cruach and his sword. It crossed Stark's mind that the creatures were +playing with him and Ciara. Yet they had no weapons. Almost, he began to +hope....</p> + +<p>From the tower where the shimmering cloud of darkness clung came a black +crescent of force that swept across the ice-field like a sickle and +gathered the two humans in.</p> + +<p>Stark felt a shock of numbing cold that turned his nerves to ice. His +sword dropped from his hand, and he heard Ciara's axe go down. His body +was without strength, without feeling, dead.</p> + +<p>He fell, and the shining ones glided in toward him.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII</h2> + + +<p>Twice before in his life Stark had come near to freezing. It had been +like this, the numbness and the cold. And yet it seemed that the dark +force had struck rather at his nerve centers than at his flesh.</p> + +<p>He could not see Ciara, who was behind him, but he heard the metallic +clashing of her mail and one small, whispered cry, and he knew that she +had fallen, too.</p> + +<p>The glowing creatures surrounded him. He saw their bodies bending over +him, the frosty tendrils of their faces writhing as though in excitement +or delight.</p> + +<p>Their hands touched him. Little hands with seven fingers, deft and +frail. Even his numbed flesh felt the terrible cold of their touch, +freezing as outer space. He yelled, or tried to, but they were not +abashed.</p> + +<p>They lifted him and bore him toward the tower, a company of them, +bearing his heavy weight upon their gleaming shoulders.</p> + +<p>He saw the tower loom high and higher still above him. The cloud of dark +force that crowned it blotted out the stars. It became too huge and high +to see at all, and then there was a low flat arch of stone close above +his face, and he was inside.</p> + +<p>Straight overhead—a hundred feet, two hundred, he could not tell—was a +globe of crystal, fitted into the top of the tower as a jewel is held in +a setting.</p> + +<p>The air around it was shadowed with the same eerie gloom that hovered +outside, but less dense, so that Stark could see the smouldering purple +spark that burned within the globe, sending out its dark vibrations.</p> + +<p>A globe of crystal, with a heart of sullen flame. Stark remembered the +sword of Ban Cruach, and the white fire that burned in its hilt.</p> + +<p>Two globes, the bright-cored and the dark. The sword of Ban Cruach +touched the blood with heat. The globe of the tower deadened the flesh +with cold. It was the same force, but at opposite ends of the spectrum.</p> + +<p>Stark saw the cryptic controls of that glooming globe—a bank of them, +on a wide stone ledge just inside the tower, close beside him. There +were shining ones on that ledge tending those controls, and there were +other strange and massive mechanisms there too.</p> + +<p>Flying spirals of ice climbed up inside the tower, spanning the great +stone well with spidery bridges, joining icy galleries. In some of those +galleries, Stark vaguely glimpsed rigid, gleaming figures like statues +of ice, but he could not see them clearly as he was carried on.</p> + +<p>He was being carried downward. He passed slits in the wall, and knew +that the pallid lights he had seen through them were the moving bodies +of the creatures as they went up and down these high-flung, icy bridges. +He managed to turn his head to look down, and saw what was beneath him.</p> + +<p>The well of the tower plunged down a good five hundred feet to bedrock, +widening as it went. The web of ice-bridges and the spiral ways went +down as well as up, and the creatures that carried him were moving +smoothly along a transparent ribbon of ice no more than a yard in width, +suspended over that terrible drop.</p> + +<p>Stark was glad that he could not move just then. One instinctive start +of horror would have thrown him and his bearers to the rock below, and +would have carried Ciara with them.</p> + +<p>Down and down, gliding in utter silence along the descending spiral +ribbon. The great glooming crystal grew remote above him. Ice was solid +now in the slots of the walls. He wondered if they had brought Balin +this way.</p> + +<p>There were other openings, wide arches like the one they had brought +their captives through, and these gave Stark brief glimpses of broad +avenues and unguessable buildings, shaped from the pellucid ice and +flooded with the soft radiance that was like eerie moonlight.</p> + +<p>At length, on what Stark took to be the third level of the city, the +creatures bore him through one of these archways, into the streets +beyond.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Below him now was the translucent thickness of ice that formed the floor +of this level and the roof of the level beneath. He could see the +blurred tops of delicate minarets, the clustering roofs that shone like +chips of diamond.</p> + +<p>Above him was an ice roof. Elfin spires rose toward it, delicate as +needles. Lacy battlements and little domes, buildings star-shaped, +wheel-shaped, the fantastic, lovely shapes of snow-crystals, frosted +over with a sparkling foam of light.</p> + +<p>The people of the city gathered along the way to watch, a living, +shifting rainbow of amethyst and rose and green, against the pure +blue-white. And there was no least whisper of sound anywhere.</p> + +<p>For some distance they went through a geometric maze of streets. And +then there was a cathedral-like building all arched and spired, +standing in the center of a twelve-pointed plaza. Here they turned, and +bore their captives in.</p> + +<p>Stark saw a vaulted roof, very slim and high, etched with a glittering +tracery that might have been carving of an alien sort, delicate as the +weavings of spiders. The feet of his bearers were silent on the icy +paving.</p> + +<p>At the far end of the long vault sat seven of the shining ones in high +seats marvellously shaped from the ice. And before them, grey-faced, +shuddering with cold and not noticing it, drugged with a sick horror, +stood Balin. He looked around once, and did not speak.</p> + +<p>Stark was set on his feet, with Ciara beside him. He saw her face, and +it was terrible to see the fear in her eyes, that had never shown fear +before.</p> + +<p>He himself was learning why men went mad beyond the Gates of Death.</p> + +<p>Chill, dreadful fingers touched him expertly. A flash of pain drove down +his spine, and he could stand again.</p> + +<p>The seven who sat in the high seats were motionless, their bright +tendrils stirring with infinite delicacy as though they studied the +three humans who stood before them.</p> + +<p>Stark thought he could feel a cold, soft fingering of his brain. It came +to him that these creatures were probably telepaths. They lacked organs +of speech, and yet they must have some efficient means of +communications. Telepathy was not uncommon among the many races of the +Solar System, and Stark had had experience with it before.</p> + +<p>He forced his mind to relax. The alien impulse was instantly stronger. +He sent out his own questing thought and felt it brush the edges of a +consciousness so utterly foreign to his own that he knew he could never +probe it, even had he had the skill.</p> + +<p>He learned one thing—that the shining faceless ones looked upon him +with equal horror and loathing. They recoiled from the unnatural human +features, and most of all, most strongly, they abhorred the warmth of +human flesh. Even the infinitesimal amount of heat radiated by their +half-frozen human bodies caused the ice-folk discomfort.</p> + +<p>Stark marshalled his imperfect abilities and projected a mental question +to the seven.</p> + +<p>"What do you want of us?"</p> + +<p>The answer came back, faint and imperfect, as though the gap between +their alien minds was almost too great to bridge. And the answer was one +word.</p> + +<p>"<i>Freedom!</i>"</p> + +<p>Balin spoke suddenly. He voiced only a whisper, and yet the sound was +shockingly loud in that crystal vault.</p> + +<p>"They have asked me already. Tell them no, Stark! Tell them no!"</p> + +<p>He looked at Ciara then, a look of murderous hatred. "If you turn them +loose upon Kushat, I will kill you with my own hands before I die."</p> + +<p>Stark spoke again, silently, to the seven. "I do not understand."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Again the struggling, difficult thought. "We are the old race, the kings +of the glacial ice. Once we held all the land beyond the mountains, +outside the pass you call the Gates of Death."</p> + +<p>Stark had seen the ruins of the towers out on the moors. He knew how far +their kingdom had extended.</p> + +<p>"We <i>controlled</i> the ice, far outside the polar cap. Our towers +blanketed the land with the dark force drawn from Mars itself, from the +magnetic field of the planet. That radiation bars out heat, from the +Sun, and even from the awful winds that blow warm from the south. So +there was never any thaw. Our cities were many, and our race was great.</p> + +<p>"Then came Ban Cruach, from the south....</p> + +<p>"He waged a war against us. He learned the secret of the crystal globes, +and learned how to reverse their force and use it against us. He, +leading his army, destroyed our towers one by one, and drove us back....</p> + +<p>"Mars needed water. The outer ice was melted, our lovely cities crumbled +to nothing, so that creatures like Ban Cruach might have water! And our +people died.</p> + +<p>"We retreated at the last, to this our ancient polar citadel behind the +Gates of Death. Even here, Ban Cruach followed. He destroyed even this +tower once, at the time of the thaw. But this city is founded in polar +ice—and only the upper levels were harmed. Even Ban Cruach could not +touch the heart of the eternal polar cap of Mars!</p> + +<p>"When he saw that he could not destroy us utterly, he set himself in +death to guard the Gates of Death with his blazing sword, that we might +never again reclaim our ancient dominion.</p> + +<p>"That is what we mean when we ask for freedom. We ask that you take away +the sword of Ban Cruach, so that we may once again go out through the +Gates of Death!"</p> + +<p>Stark cried aloud, hoarsely, "<i>No!</i>"</p> + +<p>He knew the barren deserts of the south, the wastes of red dust, the +dead sea bottoms—the terrible thirst of Mars, growing greater with +every year of the million that had passed since Ban Cruach locked the +Gates of Death.</p> + +<p>He knew the canals, the pitiful waterways that were all that stood +between the people of Mars and extinction. He remembered the yearly +release from death when the spring thaw brought the water rushing down +from the north.</p> + +<p>He thought of these cold creatures going forth, building again their +great towers of stone, sheathing half a world in ice that would never +melt. He thought of the people of Jekkara and Valkis and Barrakesh, of +the countless cities of the south, watching for the flood that did not +come, and falling at last to mingle their bodies with the blowing dust.</p> + +<p>He said again, "No. Never."</p> + +<p>The distant thought-voice of the seven spoke, and this time the question +was addressed to Ciara.</p> + +<p>Stark saw her face. She did not know the Mars he knew, but she had +memories of her own—the mountain-valleys of Mekh, the moors, the snowy +gorges. She looked at the shining ones in their high seats, and said,</p> + +<p>"If I take that sword, it will be to use it against you as Ban Cruach +did!"</p> + +<p>Stark knew that the seven had understood the thought behind her words. +He felt that they were amused.</p> + +<p>"The secret of that sword was lost a million years ago, the day Ban +Cruach died. Neither you nor anyone now knows how to use it as he did. +But the sword's radiations of warmth still lock us here.</p> + +<p>"We cannot approach that sword, for its vibrations of heat slay us if we +do. But you warm-bodied ones can approach it. And you will do so, and +take it from its place. <i>One of you will take it!</i>"</p> + +<p>They were very sure of that.</p> + +<p>"We can see, a little way, into your evil minds. Much we do not +understand. But—the mind of the large man is full of the woman's image, +and the mind of the woman turns to him. Also, there is a link between +the large man and the small man, less strong, but strong enough."</p> + +<p>The thought-voice of the seven finished, "The large man will take away +the sword for us because he must—to save the other two."</p> + +<p>Ciara turned to Stark. "They cannot force you, Stark. Don't let them. No +matter what they do to me, don't let them!"</p> + +<p>Balin stared at her with a certain wonder. "You would die, to protect +Kushat?"</p> + +<p>"Not Kushat alone, though its people too are human," she said, almost +angrily. "There are my red wolves—a wild pack, but my own. And others." +She looked at Balin. "What do <i>you</i> say? Your life against the +Norlands?"</p> + +<p>Balin made an effort to lift his head as high as hers, and the red jewel +flashed in his ear. He was a man crushed by the falling of his world, +and terrified by what his mad passion had led him into, here beyond the +Gates of Death. But he was not afraid to die.</p> + +<p>He said so, and even Ciara knew that he spoke the truth.</p> + +<p>But the seven were not dismayed. Stark knew that when their +thought-voice whispered in his mind,</p> + +<p>"It is not death alone you humans have to fear, but the manner of your +dying. You shall see that, before you choose."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Swiftly, silently, those of the ice-folk who had borne the captives into +the city came up from behind, where they had stood withdrawn and +waiting. And one of them bore a crystal rod like a sceptre, with a spark +of ugly purple burning in the globed end.</p> + +<p>Stark leaped to put himself between them and Ciara. He struck out, +raging, and because he was almost as quick as they, he caught one of the +slim luminous bodies between his hands.</p> + +<p>The utter coldness of that alien flesh burned his hands as frost will +burn. Even so, he clung on, snarling, and saw the tendrils writhe and +stiffen as though in pain.</p> + +<p>Then, from the crystal rod, a thread of darkness spun itself to touch +his brain with silence, and the cold that lies between the worlds.</p> + +<p>He had no memory of being carried once more through the shimmering +streets of that elfin, evil city, back to the stupendous well of the +tower, and up along the spiral path of ice that soared those dizzy +hundreds of feet from bedrock to the glooming crystal globe. But when he +again opened his eyes, he was lying on the wide stone ledge at +ice-level.</p> + +<p>Beside him was the arch that led outside. Close above his head was the +control bank that he had seen before.</p> + +<p>Ciara and Balin were there also, on the ledge. They leaned stiffly +against the stone wall beside the control bank, and facing them was a +squat, round mechanism from which projected a sort of wheel of crystal +rods.</p> + +<p>Their bodies were strangely rigid, but their eyes and minds were awake. +Terribly awake. Stark saw their eyes, and his heart turned within him.</p> + +<p>Ciara looked at him. She could not speak, but she had no need to. <i>No +matter what they do to me....</i></p> + +<p>She had not feared the swordsmen of Kushat. She had not feared her red +wolves, when he unmasked her in the square. She was afraid now. But she +warned him, ordered him not to save her.</p> + +<p><i>They cannot force you. Stark! Don't let them.</i></p> + +<p>And Balin, too, pleaded with him for Kushat.</p> + +<p>They were not alone on the ledge. The ice-folk clustered there, and out +upon the flying spiral pathway, on the narrow bridges and the spans of +fragile ice, they stood in hundreds watching, eyeless, faceless, their +bodies drawn in rainbow lines across the dimness of the shaft.</p> + +<p>Stark's mind could hear the silent edges of their laughter. Secret, +knowing laughter, full of evil, full of triumph, and Stark was filled +with a corroding terror.</p> + +<p>He tried to move, to crawl toward Ciara standing like a carven image in +her black mail. He could not.</p> + +<p>Again her fierce, proud glance met his. And the silent laughter of the +ice-folk echoed in his mind, and he thought it very strange that in this +moment, now, he should realize that there had never been another woman +like her on all of the worlds of the Sun.</p> + +<p>The fear she felt was not for herself. It was for him.</p> + +<p>Apart from the multitudes of the ice-folk, the group of seven stood upon +the ledge. And now their thought-voice spoke to Stark, saying,</p> + +<p>"Look about you. Behold the men who have come before you through the +Gates of Death!"</p> + +<p>Stark raised his eyes to where their slender fingers pointed, and saw +the icy galleries around the tower, saw more clearly the icy statues in +them that he had only glimpsed before.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Men, set like images in the galleries. Men whose bodies were sheathed in +a glittering mail of ice, sealing them forever. Warriors, nobles, +fanatics and thieves—the wanderers of a million years who had dared to +enter this forbidden valley, and had remained forever.</p> + +<p>He saw their faces, their tortured eyes wide open, their features frozen +in the agony of a slow and awful death.</p> + +<p>"They refused us," the seven whispered. "They would not take away the +sword. And so they died, as this woman and this man will die, unless you +choose to save them.</p> + +<p>"We will show you, human, how they died!"</p> + +<p>One of the ice-folk bent and touched the squat, round mechanism that +faced Balin and Ciara. Another shifted the pattern of control on the +master-bank.</p> + +<p>The wheel of crystal rods on that squat mechanism began to turn. The +rods blurred, became a disc that spun faster and faster.</p> + +<p>High above in the top of the tower the great globe brooded, shrouded in +its cloud of shimmering darkness. The disc became a whirling blur. The +glooming shadow of the globe deepened, coalesced. It began to lengthen +and descend, stretching itself down toward the spinning disc.</p> + +<p>The crystal rods of the mechanism drank the shadow in. And out of that +spinning blur there came a subtle weaving of threads of darkness, a +gossamer curtain winding around Ciara and Balin so that their outlines +grew ghostly and the pallor of their flesh was as the pallor of snow at +night.</p> + +<p>And still Stark could not move.</p> + +<p>The veil of darkness began to sparkle faintly. Stark watched it, watched +the chill motes brighten, watched the tracery of frost whiten over +Ciara's mail, touch Balin's dark hair with silver.</p> + +<p>Frost. Bright, sparkling, beautiful, a halo of frost around their +bodies. A dust of splintered diamond across their faces, an aureole of +brittle light to crown their heads.</p> + +<p>Frost. Flesh slowly hardening in marbly whiteness, as the cold slowly +increased. And yet their eyes still lived, and saw, and understood.</p> + +<p>The thought-voice of the seven spoke again.</p> + +<p>"You have only minutes now to decide! Their bodies cannot endure too +much, and live again. Behold their eyes, and how they suffer!</p> + +<p>"Only minutes, human! Take away the sword of Ban Cruach! Open for us the +Gates of Death, and we will release these two, alive."</p> + +<p>Stark felt again the flashing stab of pain along his nerves, as one of +the shining creatures moved behind him. Life and feeling came back into +his limbs.</p> + +<p>He struggled to his feet. The hundreds of the ice-folk on the bridges +and galleries watched him in an eager silence.</p> + +<p>He did not look at them. His eyes were on Ciara's. And now, her eyes +pleaded.</p> + +<p>"Don't, Stark! Don't barter the life of the Norlands for me!"</p> + +<p>The thought-voice beat at Stark, cutting into his mind with cruel +urgency.</p> + +<p>"Hurry, human! They are already beginning to die. Take away the sword, +and let them live!"</p> + +<p>Stark turned. He cried out, in a voice that made the icy bridges +tremble:</p> + +<p>"I will take the sword!"</p> + +<p>He staggered out, then. Out through the archway, across the ice, toward +the distant cairn that blocked the Gates of Death.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX</h2> + + +<p>Across the glowing ice of the valley Stark went at a stumbling run that +grew swifter and more sure as his cold-numbed body began to regain its +functions. And behind him, pouring out of the tower to watch, came the +shining ones.</p> + +<p>They followed after him, gliding lightly. He could sense their +excitement, the cold, strange ecstasy of triumph. He knew that already +they were thinking of the great towers of stone rising again above the +Norlands, the crystal cities still and beautiful under the ice, all +vestige of the ugly citadels of man gone and forgotten.</p> + +<p>The seven spoke once more, a warning.</p> + +<p>"If you turn toward us with the sword, the woman and the man will die. +And you will die as well. For neither you nor any other can now use the +sword as a weapon of offense."</p> + +<p>Stark ran on. He was thinking then only of Ciara, with the +frost-crystals gleaming on her marble flesh and her eyes full of mute +torment.</p> + +<p>The cairn loomed up ahead, dark and high. It seemed to Stark that the +brooding figure of Ban Cruach watched him coming with those shadowed +eyes beneath the rusty helm. The great sword blazed between those dead, +frozen hands.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + + + +<h3><i>The great sword blazed between those dead, frozen +hands....</i></h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>The ice-folk had slowed their forward rush. They stopped and waited, +well back from the cairn.</p> + +<p>Stark reached the edge of tumbled rock. He felt the first warm flare of +the force-waves in his blood, and slowly the chill began to creep out +from his bones. He climbed, scrambling upward over the rough stones of +the cairn.</p> + +<p>Abruptly, then, at Ban Cruach's feet, he slipped and fell. For a second +it seemed that he could not move.</p> + +<p>His back was turned toward the ice-folk. His body was bent forward, and +shielded so, his hands worked with feverish speed.</p> + +<p>From his cloak he tore a strip of cloth. From the iron boss he took the +glittering lens, the talisman of Ban Cruach. Stark laid the lens against +his brow, and bound it on.</p> + +<p><i>The remembered shock, the flood and sweep of memories that were not his +own. The mind of Ban Cruach thundering its warning, its hard-won +knowledge of an ancient, epic war....</i></p> + +<p>He opened his own mind wide to receive those memories. Before he had +fought against them. Now he knew that they were his one small chance in +this swift gamble with death. Two things only of his own he kept firm in +that staggering tide of another man's memories. Two names—Ciara and +Balin.</p> + +<p>He rose up again. And now his face had a strange look, a curious +duality. The features had not changed, but somehow the lines of the +flesh had altered subtly, so that it was almost as though the old +unconquerable king himself had risen again in battle.</p> + +<p>He mounted the last step or two and stood before Ban Cruach. A shudder +ran through him, a sort of gathering and settling of the flesh, as +though Stark's being had accepted the stranger within it. His eyes, cold +and pale as the very ice that sheathed the valley, burned with a cruel +light.</p> + +<p>He reached and took the sword, out of the frozen hands of Ban Cruach.</p> + +<p>As though it were his own, he knew the secret of the metal rings that +bound its hilt, below the ball of crystal. The savage throb of the +invisible radiation beat in his quickening flesh. He was warm again, his +blood running swiftly, his muscles sure and strong. He touched the rings +and turned them.</p> + +<p>The fan-shaped aura of force that had closed the Gates of Death narrowed +in, and as it narrowed it leaped up from the blade of the sword in a +tongue of pale fire, faintly shimmering, made visible now by the full +focus of its strength.</p> + +<p>Stark felt the wave of horror bursting from the minds of the ice-folk as +they perceived what he had done. And he laughed.</p> + +<p>His bitter laughter rang harsh across the valley as he turned to face +them, and he heard in his brain the shuddering, silent shriek that went +up from all that gathered company....</p> + +<p>"<i>Ban Cruach! Ban Cruach has returned!</i>"</p> + +<p>They had touched his mind. They knew.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He laughed again, and swept the sword in a flashing arc, and watched the +long bright blade of force strike out more terrible than steel, against +the rainbow bodies of the shining ones.</p> + +<p>They fell. Like flowers under a scythe they fell, and all across the ice +the ones who were yet untouched turned about in their hundreds and fled +back toward the tower.</p> + +<p>Stark came leaping down the cairn, the talisman of Ban Cruach bound upon +his brow, the sword of Ban Cruach blazing in his hand.</p> + +<p>He swung that awful blade as he ran. The force-beam that sprang from it +cut through the press of creatures fleeing before him, hampered by their +own numbers as they crowded back through the archway.</p> + +<p>He had only a few short seconds to do what he had to do.</p> + +<p>Rushing with great strides across the ice, spurning the withered bodies +of the dead.... And then, from the glooming darkness that hovered around +the tower of stone, the black cold beam struck down.</p> + +<p>Like a coiling whip it lashed him. The deadly numbness invaded the cells +of his flesh, ached in the marrow of his bones. The bright force of the +sword battled the chill invaders, and a corrosive agony tore at Stark's +inner body where the antipathetic radiations waged war.</p> + +<p>His steps faltered. He gave one hoarse cry of pain, and then his limbs +failed and he went heavily to his knees.</p> + +<p>Instinct only made him cling to the sword. Waves of blinding anguish +racked him. The coiling lash of darkness encircled him, and its touch +was the abysmal cold of outer space, striking deep into his heart.</p> + +<p><i>Hold the sword close, hold it closer, like a shield. The pain is great, +but I will not die unless I drop the sword.</i></p> + +<p>Ban Cruach the mighty had fought this fight before.</p> + +<p>Stark raised the sword again, close against his body. The fierce pulse +of its brightness drove back the cold. Not far, for the freezing touch +was very strong. But far enough so that he could rise again and stagger +on.</p> + +<p>The dark force of the tower writhed and licked about him. He could not +escape it. He slashed it in a blind fury with the blazing sword, and +where the forces met a flicker of lightning leaped in the air, but it +would not be beaten back.</p> + +<p>He screamed at it, a raging cat-cry that was all Stark, all primitive +fury at the necessity of pain. And he forced himself to run, to drag his +tortured body faster across the ice. <i>Because Ciara is dying, because +the dark cold wants me to stop....</i></p> + +<p>The ice-folk jammed and surged against the archway, in a panic hurry to +take refuge far below in their many-levelled city. He raged at them, +too. They were part of the cold, part of the pain. Because of them Ciara +and Balin were dying. He sent the blade of force lancing among them, his +hatred rising full tide to join the hatred of Ban Cruach that lodged in +his mind.</p> + +<p>Stab and cut and slash with the long terrible beam of brightness. They +fell and fell, the hideous shining folk, and Stark sent the light of Ban +Cruach's weapon sweeping through the tower itself, through the openings +that were like windows in the stone.</p> + +<p>Again and again, stabbing through those open slits as he ran. And +suddenly the dark beam of force ceased to move. He tore out of it, and +it did not follow him, remaining stationary as though fastened to the +ice.</p> + +<p>The battle of forces left his flesh. The pain was gone. He sped on to +the tower.</p> + +<p>He was close now. The withered bodies lay in heaps before the arch. The +last of the ice-folk had forced their way inside. Holding the sword +level like a lance, Stark leaped in through the arch, into the tower.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The shining ones were dead where the destroying warmth had touched +them. The flying spiral ribbons of ice were swept clean of them, the +arching bridges and the galleries of that upper part of the tower.</p> + +<p>They were dead along the ledge, under the control bank. They were dead +across the mechanism that spun the frosty doom around Ciara and Balin. +The whirling disc still hummed.</p> + +<p>Below, in that stupendous well, the crowding ice-folk made a seething +pattern of color on the narrow ways. But Stark turned his back on them +and ran along the ledge, and in him was the heavy knowledge that he had +come too late.</p> + +<p>The frost had thickened around Ciara and Balin. It encrusted them like +stiffened lace, and now their flesh was overlaid with a diamond shell of +ice.</p> + +<p>Surely they could not live!</p> + +<p>He raised the sword to smite down at the whirring disc, to smash it, but +there was no need. When the full force of that concentrated beam struck +it, meeting the focus of shadow that it held, there was a violent flare +of light and a shattering of crystal. The mechanism was silent.</p> + +<p>The glooming veil was gone from around the ice-shelled man and woman. +Stark forgot the creatures in the shaft below him. He turned the blazing +sword full upon Ciara and Balin.</p> + +<p>It would not affect the thin covering of ice. If the woman and the man +were dead, it would not affect their flesh, any more than it had Ban +Cruach's. But if they lived, if there was still a spark, a flicker +beneath that frozen mail, the radiation would touch their blood with +warmth, start again the pulse of life in their bodies.</p> + +<p>He waited, watching Ciara's face. It was still as marble, and as white.</p> + +<p>Something—instinct, or the warning mind of Ban Cruach that had learned +a million years ago to beware the creatures of the ice—made him glance +behind him.</p> + +<p>Stealthy, swift and silent, up the winding ways they came. They had +guessed that he had forgotten them in his anxiety. The sword was turned +away from them now, and if they could take him from behind, stun him +with the chill force of the sceptre-like rods they carried....</p> + +<p>He slashed them with the sword. He saw the flickering beam go down and +down the shaft, saw the bodies fall like drops of rain, rebounding here +and there from the flying spans and carrying the living with them.</p> + +<p>He thought of the many levels of the city. He thought of all the +countless thousands that must inhabit them. He could hold them off in +the shaft as long as he wished if he had no other need for the sword. +But he knew that as soon as he turned his back they would be upon him +again, and if he should once fall....</p> + +<p>He could not spare a moment, or a chance.</p> + +<p>He looked at Ciara, not knowing what to do, and it seemed to him that +the sheathing frost had melted, just a little, around her face.</p> + +<p>Desperately, he struck down again at the creatures in the shaft, and +then the answer came to him.</p> + +<p>He dropped the sword. The squat, round mechanism was beside him, with +its broken crystal wheel. He picked it up.</p> + +<p>It was heavy. It would have been heavy for two men to lift, but Stark +was a driven man. Grunting, swaying with the effort, he lifted it and +let it fall, out and down.</p> + +<p>Like a thunderbolt it struck among those slender bridges, the spiderweb +of icy strands that spanned the shaft. Stark watched it go, and listened +to the brittle snapping of the ice, the final crashing of a million +shards at the bottom far below.</p> + +<p>He smiled, and turned again to Ciara, picking up the sword.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It was hours later. Stark walked across the glowing ice of the valley, +toward the cairn. The sword of Ban Cruach hung at his side. He had taken +the talisman and replaced it in the boss, and he was himself again.</p> + +<p>Ciara and Balin walked beside him. The color had come back into their +faces, but faintly, and they were still weak enough to be glad of +Stark's hands to steady them.</p> + +<p>At the foot of the cairn they stopped, and Stark mounted it alone.</p> + +<p>He looked for a long moment into the face of Ban Cruach. Then he took +the sword, and carefully turned the rings upon it so that the radiation +spread out as it had before, to close the Gates of Death.</p> + +<p>Almost reverently, he replaced the sword in Ban Cruach's hands. Then he +turned and went down over the tumbled stones.</p> + +<p>The shimmering darkness brooded still over the distant tower. Underneath +the ice, the elfin city still spread downward. The shining ones would +rebuild their bridges in the shaft, and go on as they had before, +dreaming their cold dreams of ancient power.</p> + +<p>But they would not go out through the Gates of Death. Ban Cruach in his +rusty mail was still lord of the pass, the warder of the Norlands.</p> + +<p>Stark said to the others, "Tell the story in Kushat. Tell it through the +Norlands, the story of Ban Cruach and why he guards the Gates of Death. +Men have forgotten. And they should not forget."</p> + +<p>They went out of the valley then, the two men and the woman. They did +not speak again, and the way out through the pass seemed endless.</p> + +<p>Some of Ciara's chieftains met them at the mouth of the pass above +Kushat. They had waited there, ashamed to return to the city without +her, but not daring to go back into the pass again. They had seen the +creatures of the valley, and they were still afraid.</p> + +<p>They gave mounts to the three. They themselves walked behind Ciara, and +their heads were low with shame.</p> + +<p>They came into Kushat through the riven gate, and Stark went with Ciara +to the King City, where she made Balin follow too.</p> + +<p>"Your sister is there," she said. "I have had her cared for."</p> + +<p>The city was quiet, with the sullen apathy that follows after battle. +The men of Mekh cheered Ciara in the streets. She rode proudly, but +Stark saw that her face was gaunt and strained.</p> + +<p>He, too, was marked deep by what he had seen and done, beyond the Gates +of Death.</p> + +<p>They went up into the castle.</p> + +<p>Thanis took Balin into her arms, and wept. She had lost her first wild +fury, and she could look at Ciara now with a restrained hatred that had +a tinge almost of admiration.</p> + +<p>"You fought for Kushat," she said, unwillingly, when she had heard the +story. "For that, at least, I can thank you."</p> + +<p>She went to Stark then, and looked up at him. "Kushat, and my brother's +life...." She kissed him, and there were tears on her lips. But she +turned to Ciara with a bitter smile.</p> + +<p>"No one can hold him, any more than the wind can be held. You will learn +that."</p> + +<p>She went out then with Balin, and left Stark and Ciara alone, in the +chambers of the king.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Ciara said, "The little one is very shrewd." She unbuckled the hauberk +and let it fall, standing slim in her tunic of black leather, and walked +to the tall windows that looked out upon the mountains. She leaned her +head wearily against the stone.</p> + +<p>"An evil day, an evil deed. And now I have Kushat to govern, with no +reward of power from beyond the Gates of Death. How man can be misled!"</p> + +<p>Stark poured wine from the flagon and brought it to her. She looked at +him over the rim of the cup, with a certain wry amusement.</p> + +<p>"The little one is shrewd, and she is right. I don't know that I can be +as wise as she.... Will you stay with me, Stark, or will you go?"</p> + +<p>He did not answer at once, and she asked him, "What hunger drives you, +Stark? It is not conquest, as it was with me. What are you looking for +that you cannot find?"</p> + +<p>He thought back across the years, back to the beginning—to the boy +N'Chaka who had once been happy with Old One and little Tika, in the +blaze and thunder and bitter frosts of a valley in the Twilight Belt of +Mercury. He remembered how all that had ended, under the guns of the +miners—the men who were his own kind.</p> + +<p>He shook his head. "I don't know. It doesn't matter." He took her +between his two hands, feeling the strength and the splendor of her, and +it was oddly difficult to find words.</p> + +<p>"I want to stay, Ciara. Now, this minute, I could promise that I would +stay forever. But I know myself. You belong here, you will make Kushat +your own. I don't. Someday I will go."</p> + +<p>Ciara nodded. "My neck, also, was not made for chains, and one country +was too little to hold me. Very well, Stark. Let it be so."</p> + +<p>She smiled, and let the wine-cup fall.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Black Amazon of Mars, by Leigh Brackett + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACK AMAZON OF MARS *** + +***** This file should be named 32664-h.htm or 32664-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/6/6/32664/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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