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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d247abd --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #64711 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/64711) diff --git a/old/64711-0.txt b/old/64711-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 6df5793..0000000 --- a/old/64711-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2921 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Warlock Of Sharrador, by Gardner F. Fox - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The Warlock Of Sharrador - -Author: Gardner F. Fox - -Release Date: March 05, 2021 [eBook #64711] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WARLOCK OF SHARRADOR *** - - - - - The Warlock of Sharrador - - By GARDNER F. FOX - - _For unremembered eons the Thing had slept. For - a million years it had quested through the star - worlds of its dreams, until it lived only as a - faint legend in the race memories of mankind. But - now the time had come for man to recall its name, - and to worship it once again. Noorlythin arose - and went out into the world of men and robots._ - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Planet Stories March 1953. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - -The McCanahan came awake in the pearl mists of a Senn dawn, staring -upward into the round blue muzzle of a Thorn blaster. The handgun -hung in the air without visible support, its trigger moving slowly -back. In an instant, it would lash out at him with a thousand tares of -destruction. - -He whipped the bedclothes into a geyser of silk and moonylon, and dove -naked over the edge of the bed to roll on the floor and turn over and -over. He brought up against the chair where his uniform belt hung, and -fumbled blindly for his service holster. - -The blaster spoke in a soft whooosh of yellow flame, and the bedclothes -puffed once, billowing into a thick, reddish smoke. _That would have -been me, instead of the blankets, if the Little People had not come in -my dreams to whisper in my ears of Flaith's loveliness_, the McCanahan -thought, and tore loose his addy-gun. - -His wrist steadied, and he touched the stud. The blaster, hung on a -tensor beam, went red, then white, and began to melt in droplets all -over the thick Morrvan carpet of his officer's quarters. The tensor -beam, held by a minute mechanism inbuilt within the handgun's butt, let -loose, and the blistered, melting thing thudded to the floor. - -"It was a close thing," Kael McCanahan told himself, sitting there -naked on the floor. - -It had been the sfarri who had sent the gun. The sfarri, who hated the -men of Terra with a hate like a fierce, blazing flame, who would not -scruple at assassination to gain their aims. - -They were a cold, efficient breed of men, these sfarri. The farflung -Galactic fleet ships of Mother Terra, stretched in a thin line between -the stars, had crossed addy beams and searirays with their slim vessels -a thousand times. Almost always, Terra lost her ships. Almost always, -those far-ranging sfarran ships smashed the eagle-blazoned Terran -cruisers, and fled like laughing ghosts into the black infinity of -space. - -No Terran ship had ever captured a living sfarran. Somehow, with the -barbaric philosophy of hara-kari, they committed suicide. It never -failed. - -And slowly, but remorselessly, the ships of Terra and the Solar Combine -were pushed back and back, away from the Rim planets and the close -vastness of the Sack worlds that were so rich in every mineral, jewel -and foodstuff known to man, and even in some that Terran man had never -known. - -The Solar Command had ordered Kael's father, Sire Patric McCanahan, -Fleet Admiral, with Captain Raoul Edmunds and Commodore Kael McCanahan, -to Senorech, there to make at last parlay with the High Mor who ruled -the Senn. They were to offer alliances and trade agreements. - -Too many times, at the foot of the great ruboid throne of the Senn -ruler, had young Kael McCanahan seen the thin, hard lips of the High -Mor twist cruelly as he lashed out at the gray-haired Admiral. Too many -times had the red flush of fury crept up past his tight white uniform -collar with its crimson Commodore braid encrusted thick on its rich -surface, as he listened to the High Mor explaining to his father the -fact that the men of the Solar Command were no match for the relentless -fury of the sfarri. - -The High Mor, it was plain, was eager to ally himself with the sfarri. - -In return, the sfarri would rid him of these annoying Terrans. - - * * * * * - -The Thorn blaster that lay melting on the thick pile of his officer's -quarters was the opening shot in the extermination program. - -The McCanahan let the breath from his lungs in a sudden relief. He sat -with his back propped against the leg of the chair, and the hand that -held his own Thorn shook so that he put his wrist on his naked knee. He -was a tall man, a man grown hard and fit with the mechanical fitness -that was the hallmark of all officers of the Solar Intergalactic -Command. Blond hair was cropped close to the conformations of his head, -giving his face a hard, carven look. - -The mark of deep space was in Kael McCanahan's eyes, and in the catlike -walk and movements of his big body. He had been processed as only -Spacefleet officers were processed, in these days of the Empire, with a -cold precision to his mind and a careful hardness to his body. - -He came off the floor and began to dress, sliding into the white -uniform with its crimson facings, pushing feet into highly polished jet -boots. His mind went to his father, the Sire Patric McCanahan, who was -Earth representative at the court of the High Mor, overlord of Senorech. - -"If they've made their try for me, they've already made it for him," he -told the room. - -He buttoned his white jacket that had the golden eagles at collar -and cuffs. He whipped the leather service belt around his middle. He -fastened the black blaster holster to its pivot. - -The door opened to a fingerpress, and he was out in the long, metaloid -hall, moving with long strides. A woman came out of the shadows to meet -him, running. - -"Kael! Kael--wait!" - -It was Cassy Garson, in her white nursing uniform that was always a -little too tight for her curved body. Like many other Earth officers on -the distant planets of the empire, the McCanahan had fond memories of -the Nursing Auxiliary of the Fleet. Cassy Garson had been a lot of fun, -on a dance floor or under the curved canopy of a canalboat, or on the -silken cushions of a reflexifloor. - -Her soft hands caught his, and he could feel her body's tremblings -as she came against him. "Kael, you've heard! Oh, Kael, I'm scared! -What'll they do to us?" - -"Talk sense, Cassy!" he snapped, knowing his nerves frayed and jumpy -because of the metal thing he had melted in his room. He softened his -voice, and told her of it. - -Her dark eyes were frightened things. "They killed your father tonight! -The same way, probably. A Thorn blaster was found a foot from his -gloved hand. It looks like suicide. The High Mor has sent word that -we're to leave. All of us. No more Earthers on Senorech!" - -Cassy whispered in the stillness of the corridor, "We've orders to be -aboard the _Eclipse_ by noon. To chart our course for Antares. To get -out of the Rim planets and stay out." - -The McCanahan drew a deep breath. His tight collar choked him, and a -vein swelled and throbbed in his hard face. "He's afraid of the sfarri. -Sfar is close to the High Mor's home galaxy. May the gods curse a man -so driven by fear he'd murder a man who wished him nothing but good!" - -Cassy shook against him. "Kael, let's rouse the others! We've got to be -on the _Eclipse_ by noon!" - - * * * * * - -There was nothing he could do now, nothing except swallow the bitter -truth that he was running from a fight, that he was leaving his dead -father on an alien planet with not even a shamrock to blow in the -breeze above his grave. His father, one of the Bloody McCanahans, who -had scratched their names on graves from Mars to Makron, who had been -born to the service of the golden eagles, and now lay with no man to -whisper a prayer over his dead body. - -McCanahan shook himself like a cat stretching after a sleep. The anger -boiled within him, locked inside his guts by his tight lips. "I'm going -to get his body, Cassy. I'll take it back with us for decent burial." - -Her hands tightened until the red nails cut into his flesh. "You're -a fool, Kael McCanahan! A stubborn fool that's walking to his death! -Don't you understand? That's just what the High Mor wants you to do! -He'll have his dragon killers waiting for you, like cats standing at a -mouse-hole in the kitchen flooring!" - -"Let them wait," he growled, but her hand dragged him along the -corridor, to door after door of the fleet barracks. They roused the -honor guard, eighty men in all, the most allowed on Senorech by the -High Mor. Men tumbled from their bunks with sleep glazing their eyes, -but they wakened fast enough, with Cassy and the McCanahan to whip them -into action. - -They found Captain Edmunds of the _Eclipse_ half dressed. A small, -chunky man, he showed the years of his service in the crowsfeet at the -corners of his eyes and the faint silver that threaded his curly black -hair. - -"I'm sorry, Kael. You're The McCanahan now, but that doesn't mean a -thing, not after what's happened. Get aboard the ship. I'll bring the -men, and whatever they want to take along." - -Cassy said, "I've alerted the nurses. They'll be ready at blast-off -time." - -Within an hour, it was done. Sober men in white uniforms were filing -out of their quarters by twos and threes, with their warbags slung -over shoulders or hanging by leather thongs from their wrists. They -moved across the city in a body, nurses in their center, their hands -wrapped on the walnut butts of their service blasters. - -McCanahan lost himself five minutes before Captain Edmunds took -them out of barracks, toward the silver bullet that was the S.I.C. -_Eclipse_. He stepped from Cassy Garson's side, into an intersecting -corridor, and moved down a flight of steps to the basement. It was -easy, down here among the great heating tubes and dynamos, to stand and -wait until the bootfalls faded. Cassy came once to a ramp, and called, -but her voice echoed hollowly in the cellar unanswered. - -Twenty minutes after they were gone across the city, McCanahan was -sliding through the shadows cast by the monolithic buildings, and -moving along the broad avenue flanking the Jaddarak canal. Ahead of him -were the white bulks of the government buildings. Somewhere in those -towering multi-windowed edifices, his father lay dead, with a Thorn -blaster close to his hand. - -He reached the high stone wall of the gardens and was hoisting himself -over the red and stone walltop when a dark-faced Senn caught sight -of his Earther uniform and screeched the alarm. The McCanahan cursed -in his throat and dropped to the ground inside the garden, his jet -boots printing their soles deep in the soft loam of a bed of Thallan -sunflowers. - -He made for the arched doorway at the near end of the gardens. At a -run he came into the darkness of the groined arches. He knew his way -through these labyrinthine tunnels. With his father, he liked to walk -in the cool corridors where the manacled takkaprots screeched their -birdlike songs and the colored waters of the fountains made a rainbow -of moving brilliance. - -The hoarse, brazen pitch of the bry-horns were startling in the -Senorech morning. _They'll be roaming these halls with their blasters -cutting at every shadow_, he thought. _Sooner or later one of the -shadows they shoot at will be mine!_ He had to reach his father's -suite, had to kneel there and do what must be done for Patric -McCanahan, as Patric had done to his own father before him. - -They might expect him to come as he was, expect him to fight his way to -his father's side and kneel to whisper a prayer for him over his dead -body. On Earth it would be expected. Expected and guarded against. But -Senorech was not Earth, and on Senorech things were rarely done for -emotional reasons. The McCanahan yanked his Thorn from its sheath as he -slid into a telepetor and twirled a dial. If they were expecting him he -was ready. - -Curiously, the suite of rooms was empty, save for the crumpled man -who lay in a white uniform with gold and platinum aigrettes on the -shoulders, and red tykkan braid looped under a crumpled arm. McCanahan -went to his knees, and his lips moved. In the custom of spacemen -everywhere, from the domed tunnels of the Moon to the hellcraters of -humid Brinth, he put his hand to his father's wrist and whispered, "I -swear by the blood that bonds us, you will not have died in vain. I -will make the report, and investigate the reason for your dying." - -It was a simple thing, that oath. Many men had spoken it, until it -had become a part of the creed of those who roamed the star world. It -prevented tragedies, and saved lives, for once the reason for a man's -death was known, preventive precautions were taken, so that many men -who otherwise would have died, lived to walk the palm terraces of Mars -and sail the tossing seas of Achernar. The histories of space featured -and explained it, and glamorized its usefulness. - -But as the McCanahan let the words trail from his lips, he cursed and -looked down at his palm, where part of his father's wrist had come off, -to stick to it. - -He grimaced, and then reason came into his head. His father was -recently dead, no rotting corpse. "Plastiskin," he breathed, and leaned -down, ripping with strong fingers at that wrist, carefully built up to -hide something. - -Around his father's wrist was wrapped a length of silvery wire, thin -and fine. The McCanahan leaned forward and untwisted it. - -It came away and danced in his fingers, reflecting the blue glow of -the wall mercuri-lamps. - -"A harpstring!" - -He sat on his ankles and forgot that a mile away the _Eclipse_ was -warming its take-off tubes. "Now why in the name of Brian Born did -father hide such a thing on his wrist? He played no harp, nor anything -else that ever made music!" - - * * * * * - -But this was no time to solve puzzles. With a snap of his fingers, he -rolled up the silvery wire and bound it tight about an ankle, then -thrust his foot back into his service boot. He went to the window and -stared down at the splashing fountains and the sunflower gardens half a -mile below him. The walls were lined with Senn guards, inside and out, -and men with the High Mor's red dragon insignia on their cloaks moved -here and there in the shrubbery, slashing at ferns and jungle vines -with their swords. - -"They'll tire of that soon enough," he decided. "Then they'll come -through the palace itself, a floor at a time, working the place over -with the point of a dagger and the muzzle of a Thorn." - -They would be expecting him to hide. They would be expecting him to -keep retreating ahead of them until they trapped him high above, in a -cloud-room or on a rooftop. A Senn or a sfarran would act like that. -They would do the smart, the sensible thing. - -"Faith, my belly tells me it's the smart thing for myself as well," the -McCanahan muttered. "But my head tells me something else again." - -He wandered the rooms of the palace until he found the wallgrille of -an atmosphere tube. With the edge of his service knife, he worked at -the screws until the plate came loose from the wall. He crawled into -the tube and replaced the grate as best he could. Then, sliding and -levering himself from curve to curve of the tube, he began moving -downwards. - -When he came to gentle loops in the tubes, he let go and slid. It took -him three hours to get down, but when he came into the cold metal coils -that could duplicate the atmosphere of fifty planets, he was below the -search level, and as good as a free man walking the streets. - -"Except for the uniform," he told himself, glancing down ruefully at -the white and gold resplendence of his fleet garb. - -In ten minutes he was crawling up through a street grille, and heading -for the space docks. - -He was moving up the Avenue of Emblems, with the gleaming bullet that -was the S.I.C. _Eclipse_ towering above the buildings, nosing its point -skyward, still half a mile ahead of him, when he heard the announcers. -The words were just sounds, at first, like the pennons flapping above -his head from the tall poles, each a gift of the United Worlds. - -His mind was torn cleanly with a thin, hard grief, for he was -remembering his father, and the way of his smiling and his gentle -voice, and the fun they had shared together on the Klisskahaenay Rapids -in a boat, or in the crisp darkness of space, with the stars beckoning -and his father pointing them out to him. And his handclasp when he left -for the Academy, his letters, his visits at holidays when the needs of -the Empire were relaxed enough to free the Admiral from his cruiser. It -was a good companionship, that of his father and himself, born of their -mutual need when his mother died on Aldebaran. - -And now it was over. No more would he see that smile or listen to that -voice or wonder how it was that his father knew so much more than he -about so many things. They would never hook a lyskansa-fish or blast -a Martian boar with needleguns. They would never find new foods in -restaurants that-- - -"--under penalty of the red dragon! Repeating! Space Commodore -McCanahan--Kael McCanahan, Earther--is to die on sight. All guards are -hereby warned. McCanahan must not leave Akkalan. He is to be shot on -sight, under penalty of the red dragon! Repeating...." - -It sank in after a while. He drew back into the shadows, and the -harpstring tied to his ankle pained him, as if it whispered with his -father's voice. _They're afraid of me and what I can do to them_, -his mind told him. _They don't even dare let me get close to a -spacommunicator panel!_ But why? Why? The McCanahan shook his head -and looked down at himself, neat and trim in the gold and white space -uniform. - -"_It's a card with my name on it asking that they shoot me_," he -told the shadows. "_I've got to be rid of it or swallow a dozen -blaster-beams._" - -They would be searching the space docks just about now, minutes before -take-off time. They would almost dismantle the ship to find him. And -there would be others, blasters in their hands, stretched all around -the field. They would shoot on sight, to kill, or they would suffer -the fate of the red dragon; and no one in his right mind cared even to -think about that punishment, that took a man a month of agony to die. - -McCanahan stripped naked in the shadows and bundled his uniform into -a ball and weighed it with his boots. He made a compact bundle and -threw it up, through the lengthening shadows, onto a low, sloping roof. -Let them find that when they could! Then he turned and ran on the -sun-warmed bricks, away from the field, toward the dirty alleyways that -were the Akkalan slums. - -"Now where in the name of the family leprechaun could a man who is -stripped to his buff hope to find a shelter in this unholy town?" he -asked the wind as he ran. - -McCanahan thought of Ars Maasen, a little dark man with a colossal -thirst for the pale yellow fire that was Senn wine. His lips twitched -as his memory ran on the nights they had spent together in the low-land -taverns, sampling every liquid that the skills and arts of men could -brew. Ars Maasen traded in lyss furs, and spent his profits faster than -the fierce little desert tycats could breed and run to his traps. - -With Ars Maasen he would find Flaith. - - - II - -The cities of the Senorech had been built half a million years ago when -their primates first modelled clay from mud and water. As the years -piled knowledge on their shoulders, their buildings grew and expanded, -but they still showed the heterogeneous planning the first Senn had -put into them. A man could lose himself in the slum quarter, where -the dragon police rarely came, for the High Mor was content to close -his eyes to the manner of a man's profit, providing he paid a good -tax at the end of the year. Under the creaking signs and iron grille -balconies, in the dark street shadows, even a naked man could run free -and unmolested. - -He came to a square of light and an open door under a carven tycat. -Carefully he crept closer listening to the song a hundred throats were -bellowing through the smoke and the wine fumes. He came inside on -soundless feet and stood sheltered by a solid oak railing. - -Flaith was a breath in a man's throat and a catch at his guts, lovely -in bronze moire, her amber shoulders bared to the curve of her breasts, -the moire slashed teasingly down a naked side to the swell of a white -hip. She leaned on the wooden tabletop, and her slant eyes were clear, -and her crimson hair a flame caught in the blaze of a wall torch. - -The McCanahan let his eyes linger on her loveliness, but it was the -little dark man, with the scar across half his face and a full foaming -tankard at his mouth, that he had come to see. - -He drew back his arm and threw the pebble he held. - -Ars Maasen felt the sting of the rock on his forehead. He lowered his -mug and swore by a dozen gods at the ill manners of men who would toss -rocks in the middle of such a song. And then he felt Flaith's white -fingers, and the dig of her long red nails in his forearm. - -"It's Kael!" she whispered. "He's naked and alone!" - -"For shame! A fine boy like that and--" - -"Hssst, you byblow fool!" she warned. "Go to him and see what he needs!" - -She pressed the key to her dressing room into his hand, and when he had -slipped through the men and women toward the door, she stood so the -others could see her. On tiny golden feet she climbed from chair to -tabletop, and her bare arms were amber serpents writhing in the crimson -half-light. - -"The Snakes of Slaamsheel," she called to the players, and a roar of -delight went up, for this was an old ballad, and the flame-like Flaith -dancing with skirt to mid-thighs across the tabletops, set the blood -bubbling in a man's veins. - -The McCanahan caught the fire of her throaty singing just as Ars -Maasen whipped the cloak off his shoulders and flung it about his chest. - -"A full belly, is it?" the dark little man asked. "Wine or Puban ale or -maybe both?" - -"I'm sober as the snakes Flaith sings of, and as mean!" - -Ars Maasen caught the madness in his voice, and grunted, "Come quickly, -then. This way, across the sill and through the alley to her doorway!" - -When they were moving into the shadows of the alley, Kael told him of -his father's death, and of the orders of the High Mor that made him -lower than a Tuuran-peddler. And as the words came through his teeth, -the raw fury that twisted him showed in his eyes. "They blasted him -without a chance for a fight--the way they tried to blast me! Now -they're hunting me for a reason only the Shee fairies could know!" - -"Easy, boy. Easy! Talk as you want--it helps ease the pain under your -navel. But don't let the hate shake you so. It blinds a man." - -The little trader turned the key in the lock and the stout wooden door -opened inward to a tiny room where an oil lamp cast a dim yellow glare -on a dressing table and stool. Costumes hung from a peg-rack on the -wall above a tycat-skin couch. - -"Flaith's room," he muttered. "Only she comes here." - -The McCanahan sat on the couch, and with elbows on knees he looked at -the floor and began to swear. He cursed in low Martian, and in fluent -English, in high Centauran and sibilant Antaranese. "May the foul -fiends of Mars' ten hells gnaw his belly! May the imps of Iseen claw -his eyes from now 'til Doomsday! If only Hobgob himself were alive, and -here to fly away over Cureeng with his mean little soul!" - - * * * * * - -Ars Maasen chuckled, and Kael McCanahan bit down on his tongue and -glared hard at him. The little man moved to the dressing table and -lifted a golden carafe. He went to pour the fiery liquid it held, then -turned to glance at the McCanahan. He shook his head and went across -the room and gave him the carafe. - -"There are times when a man can't quench a thirst, no matter how much -he drinks. Take it all." - -Kael tilted the carafe and let the smokey quistl slide into his mouth. -After a long while he tossed the carafe aside, and drew air into his -lungs. He came to his feet and walked up and down. - -"I'll need clothes. Some sort of disguise. I can talk their language -well enough. I'll make out until the heat ebbs away and I can come back -for him. The High Mor! A god and a priest to a god to these heathen -Senn! But he's a man, and man can die, slowly and in great pain, when -he's hated!" - -Ars shook his head. "Go away, yes. But forget this vengeance for a long -time. Maybe forever. You'll live longer that way." - -Kael put out his hand and lifted the dark man off the floor and shook -him. "He murdered my father! Burned him while he slept, with a Thorn -blaster on a tensor beam! No way to strike back! No chance to fight for -the life he loved!" - -He put the little man down and patted his arm. Ars rubbed his chest -where his jerkin had pinched his flesh. "You're a strong man, Kael -McCanahan. But not strong enough to buck the High Mor on Senorech! I -tell you--" - -The door came open and Flaith slid in, away from the reek of winey air -and the sound of roaring voices. She closed and locked the door and set -her back to it. - -She was a woman to stir the pulse of a man, in her bronze gown with its -slits and deep neck, and the tight fit of its cloth to the swell of her -haunches. Her slant eyes with the long curving lashes, the red fullness -of a moist mouth and the smooth forehead low under the flaming hair had -made her the darling of the quarter. She looked at Kael with her anger -bright in her green eyes, and her lips thinned to a tense line. - -"Before you speak, Flaith," said Ars Maasen suddenly, "let me tell you -he isn't drunk, except with hate for the men that killed his father." - -When Ars was done with the story she was in front of Kael whispering -softly, "Kael, forgive me! A woman can be a fool! I was one just now, -with the thoughts I had of you." - -"It doesn't matter. Nothing matters any more except the man I'm going -to kill some day! They won't let me leave on the _Eclipse_. They're -going to keep me here and hunt me down. And I don't know why!" - -Flaith whirled and went to her dressing table. She fumbled at a jar, -lifting the lid and dipping her fingers into jet cream. She said, "I'll -change the look of your face, Kael honey. Wipe away its hardness and -its pain. And somewhere here in all these clothes will be something to -fit you. Ars, look among them!" - -For an hour the McCanahan sat while they worked on him, and when the -hour was done, he stared at himself in the mirror and swore by the eye -of Balor himself that no man on all Senorech would know him. - -"You're as big and as strong," Ars grinned, studying him. "But you look -like a traveling singer, with those short curls and the shadows under -your eyes. A man who sings to a woman and loves her, and runs with the -dawn!" - -Kael snorted, but Flaith nodded. - -"A singer or a player of music. Can you use those fingers to coax a -tune from anything but a pretty girl?" - -Kael laughed. "And what would a man whose family came from Galway be -playing? I remember a night I sang of love to a woman on a balcony over -the canals of Shar Lir before I put the harp aside and coaxed music -from her flesh." - -Flaith flushed and scowled, then bubbled laughter. - -"You used a harp, that night, you faithless rheenog! A harp that I -bought and put aside with my tears, like a moonstruck schoolgirl!" - -She fumbled in a chest and drew it out. The lamplight caught its thirty -strings and made them glitter. Her fingers stroked it, and her eyes -were tender as she lifted them to his face. - -Flaith shrugged her shoulders. "I'm crazy. I'm moonstruck and as mad as -the ghouls that haunt the rim of Braloom! But--I'm going with you!" - -And when Kael would have argued, she put her fingers across his lips -and shoved him toward the door. - -"Wait outside! Neither you nor Ars nor any man we meet will know Flaith -for the shameless little gypsy she's going to turn into! Do you think I -want those fingers coaxing music from that harp for anybody but me?" - - - III - -The old rock road from Akkalan to the cities of the Inland Seas is -long and broken. Deserts spin their sandy webs across the shards of -its ancient cobblestones. Gaunt black ruins of forgotten cities can be -glimpsed dimly in the fading sunset, at the foot of the Samarinthine -Hills, or standing atop the stone slabs that mark the caravan routes -from Pint to Kanadar. Few used the old stone road, and the few who did -travel it were so wrapped in their own cares--for this was a road much -frequented by criminals and their like--they had no thought for the man -and woman who sat by the edge of a running stream, twenty feet from the -crumbled side of the highway. - -Kael's long fingers swept the taut strings of the silver harp, and a -burst of clear sound came flowing forth in a wild, free call. And then -the sound was softening, deepening, and in it was something of the peat -bogs of Iar Connacht, and something of the chill wind that sweeps the -Finnihy from Kenmare to Killarney. A soul wept bitterly in the strings' -twanging, with the tears of Deirdre staining its cheeks, and the -terrors of Strongbow's son clutching its middle. - -"Ai, to be like Ossian, with the power to move men to laughter or to -tears with the playing of his fingers on the strings," he whispered to -Flaith, where she lay with her chin pillowed on a white fist, staring -at him. "But a man does what he can with what he must, and I'm not one -for blaming the tool in my hand. It's a good harp." - -"It was made by Brith Tsinan," Flaith told him dryly. - -The McCanahan opened his eyes at that, and held the harp so as to -admire its fluted curve and ornate column. He touched the strings again -and they wept at the deftness of his touch. He moved them again and -made them laugh. - -Flaith wriggled her naked toes to the lilting rhythms he drew from -the strings. Across the star lanes and the paths of distant planets, -men and women had carried these tunes, and though they lay as dust in -their graves, something of their memories sat in Kael McCanahan's -fingers this day. - -He made the harp sing of Tara and the great hall of Cormac MacAirt, of -the baying hounds that ran in the hunts at Clonmell, and the cursing -stones of Monasteraden. - -The girl rolled on her back in the grass, and the worn cloth of her -blouse grew taut across her breasts. "Teach me words to put to those -songs, Kael McCanahan," she whispered, "and we'll eat well from the -coppers and silver bits we take in the marts like Clonn Fell and -Mishordeen." - -"Words? Songs? I don't know anything about those. Make up your own -words while I play to your ears and the sunlight, and the joy of being -alive!" - -And at the thought of life, he thought of death, and remembered his -father lying on the floor with a Thorn blaster close at hand, and -remembered Captain Edmunds and Cassy Garson and the rest who had lifted -from Senn in the S.I.C. _Eclipse_, and what had happened to them after -that! - -He stood suddenly. The scowl was black across his face as he lifted the -harp. He threw it from him roughly. Its strings screamed angrily as it -skidded across the ground. - -"I sit here and play music, and my father calls to me in whatever grave -they gave him! I ought to be thinking of finding the High Mor and -choking the life from his throat with these hands!" - -Flaith put her long fingers to her red hair and shook it free to the -breeze. Her slant eyes brooded at him as she remembered that day--weeks -back--when they had stood outside the walks of Akkalan watching the -destruction of the _Eclipse_ under the cruiser beams of the High Mor's -space fleet. - -Kael had watched, sick and twisted. "That rotten mother's son ordered -her smashed! He couldn't find me, so he played it safe and killed them -all!" - -He went mad for a little while, and Flaith clung to him with sharp -nails digging into his arm and back, screaming in his ear. Only when -she buried her teeth in his neck and tasted blood did he come back to -sanity. - -Now, remembering all that, and knowing how the death of his father and -the destruction of the _Eclipse_ ate in his middle with a sort of -sharp, acid bitterness, Flaith watched the McCanahan lift the harp from -where he had flung it. A silvern string was curled up, snapped by the -rocks across which it had skidded. - -"Now, how can we replace that?" Kael wondered. And then his fingers -were slipping off his boot and lifting loose the harpstring he had -taken from his dead father's wrist. - -"It isn't a d-note," he told Flaith, "but it will have to do. I'll not -touch it oftener than I must." - -He attached the string, and tested it with sweeping fingers. He -growled, "Only Ossian himself would know the difference." - -The McCanahan brooded less and less in the days that followed, and as -they moved along the road that bent in a wide arc about Drekkora and -beyond the snowtopped hills of Sharn, he slipped back into the Kael -McCanahan she had known in the taverns. Laughter came back to his -lips, and he turned more and more to the harp, coaxing magic from its -strings, that seemed to soothe his spirit. - -As he played, Flaith hummed with him, and words came to her lips, words -that matched the wild, clear music, and she sang these words to the -ancient melodies, and at last they came to Clonn Fell. - - * * * * * - -The stalls that lined the Square of the Balang were hung with priceless -tapestries from the looms of Beinoll and Drithdraga, and were bright -with the potteries of Lamanneen. Men and women of city house and desert -tent brushed through the stalls, fingering the wares, haggling over -prices, dipping into leather purses for stored coins. Many there were -whose fingers waved to the sounds that came from the big fountain in -the square where a tall man sat and played a silver harp. - -No man would have known the McCanahan in this brown stranger with the -naked chest gleaming through the rents of his worn, dusty jerkin, -with his loose cloth trousers fastened at naked ankles with metallic -cording. And no man would have known Flaith in the dark-skinned gypsy -wanton, with her midriff bare above her flapping skirt of transparent -teel and below the woven halter that bound her breasts. She was a -gamin who laughed and swayed her hips as she sang, and her eyes flashed -and flirted with the slack-jawed farmers in from fields and furrows. - -A sudden jostling took the farmers and the merchants as they listened -to the harpstrings. They made way sullenly for the file of sfarran -warriors who came shouldering a path arrogantly through the press. They -were tall, handsome men, their lean faces swart and dark. They looked -like fighting men, trim in black and gilt field uniforms. Their black -eyes moved everywhere, missing nothing. - -Now the sfarran detail was closer to the marble fountain where Kael sat -with Flaith huddled close against him. He could feel the shiver run -through her bare arm where it pressed his side. - -She whispered, "They look for us," and her dark eyes surveyed him, -studying his disguise. He could read the approval in them. - -The sfarri glanced at them and passed on. - -A man cursed softly from the shadows. There was a wild flurry of capes -and sandalled feet. A peddler, with a scraggly gray beard flowing -across his chest, ran like a frightened rat from a group of Kash -cattlemen and into a thick thong of rug merchants from Stig. - -"A rykinthus peddler," whispered Flaith. - -Kael felt the fury rise in him. The sfarri governed the people of this -planet as they might a herd of cattle. There was no emotion in the -chase. It was hunt and man down, capture him! Take him to the sfarri -tribunal, where an atomic disintor ray would blast him into thick white -powder. - -The peddler ran past Kael on shaking legs. - -In his darkest eyes Kael read the angry terror that lay deep within -him. Teeth gritted, Kael moved clumsily, bumping into the foremost of -the sfarri pursuers, throwing him off balance. Two others ran into him -and fell heavily to the cobblestones of the square. - -The sfarran officer rose, tight-lipped at this clumsiness. His hand -went to the holster of his addy-gun. Kael rammed a fist to his middle -and slid sideways, his harp still in his hand. With a backward lash of -his arm he drove the harp's heavy crown into his temple. - -The blow knocked the harp from his hand. He scrambled after it, where -it lay on the cobblestones. His fingers missed as he snatched at it -and swept across the strings. At the harsh, discordant sound that rose -into the air the sfarran officer who had been reaching for him fell -awkwardly to the stones, sprawling lifelessly. - -Other sfarri were falling too, as if the breath of life had been blown -from them. They lay here and there beside the fountain, like dead men. - -Kael stared dumbly, hearing the shouts of the people of Clonn Fell -falling back from the lifeless sfarri. - -Then he whirled and slipped in among the crowding merchants and -farmers, pretending that he was driven by stark terror. - -A moment of wild, flurried movement, and he was free, darting behind -a wooden wagon toward the heavy drapes of a carpet stall. Flaith was -shrinking back, also losing herself in the milling mob. - -Kael saw her, dove toward her. - -She cried out, "What was it? How'd you do it? What killed them?" - -"I don't know! We have no time to play guessing games!" - -He caught her hand, dragged her into an alleyway where the massive -stone walls of ancient buildings towered high above them. The dark -shadows they cast lay like shielding hands that shrouded them in sudden -darkness. - -Flaith panted, "You touched your harp! It made a sound! That must have -done it!" - -"I know all that! But for the sake of your unborn children, stop -talking and run!" - - * * * * * - -They went swiftly through the narrow streets, burdened only by the -silver harp. Under a stone archway, Kael swung to the right. A small -figure stood in the doorway, beckoning to them. It was the bearded -peddler Kael had saved from the sfarri. - -"This way," the peddler called. "Lunol forgets no man who saves him -from death!" - -An oak door opened. From it, a stone stair led down into a pit of -Stygian blackness. The peddler put a hand on Kael's belt, dragging him -down into the gloom. They went swiftly, toward a stream of water that -rushed and gurgled darkly between two narrow paths of brick that jutted -outward from the sheer rock walls. - -"The sewer system of Clonn Fell! Quickly, along the ledge! Gods be with -us! If the sfarri follow and clap their hands on us they'll throw us to -their torturers!" - -The peddler whimpered in his fear as he scurried along the narrow brick -ledge. Kael and Flaith ran after him. Soon their sandals were wet with -the accumulated filth and slime of centuries. They moved swiftly, with -the dim light of tiny bulbs, high in the domed ceiling, guiding their -feet. - -They went for miles through the sewer, deep down under the streets of -Clonn Fell. - -When they emerged into bright sunlight, they stood on a wide beach -where the gray, cold waters of the Taganian Sea rolled restlessly. - -Flaith sank on a rock, one hand pushing back her thick red hair. Kael -read her weariness in her haggard face. - -"Why were the sfarri after you?" he asked the peddler. "What did you -do?" - -Lunol shrugged. "I dwell in the Clith Korakam desert that stretches -from the ocean here to the cliffs of Kamm." - -Kael frowned his puzzlement. - -It was Flaith who explained. "The black tower of Balzel lies in -the Clith Korakam desert. It is a place forbidden to all people of -Senorech." - -The old man whimpered his fright. "I saw a man come out of that tower. -It was many months ago. He was a tall man with a bald head and scrawny, -withered arms. And yet there was something in the manner of his -walking, something in the way he held his head, that sent a cold chill -of terror down my spine! - -"Since then I have had dreams. Terrible, frightening dreams! Dreams -of places where no man has ever been! The sfarri have been hunting me -since then. It took them a long time to find me, but now--" - -Lunol shrugged. "From here it is not far to Clith Korakam. Once I am on -its sands no man will ever be able to find me! I've spent all my life -on those sands. I know them as I know the fingers of my hands." - -Kael looked at Flaith. "Sure, they'll be after us, too, now! They know -what we look like. They'll want us for helping this one get away." - -"What can we do?" - -The old peddler smiled. His swart face lighted under the loose cowl of -his kufiyah. - -"Come with me. I will make a home for you on the desert where none -shall ever find you." - -Flaith said, "Perhaps they won't know about us. We left the sfarri -lying like dead men, remember!" - -Lunol looked his interest. - -Kael said, "I touched my harp and the sfarri fell like poisoned -insects. Why they fell I do not know. Do you?" - -Lunol shrugged his shoulders. "I am an ignorant man. I do not know -about these things. But this I do know. If we do not go into the -desert, sooner or later the sfarri will find us!" - -They set off across the sands, past the high-humped rocks that were -beaten and weathered by the fierce storms that ravaged the planet. They -struggled across the burning wasteland, their throats choked with the -heat and the sand. - -The sun glowed down on them, making sweat run in tiny rivers that -plastered their robes to their flesh. The hours went by. Night came, -and they slept where they fell, exhausted. - -With the sun, they were up and moving. The days came and went, long -eternities of heat and thirst, through which they plodded in the -shifting sands. They were tiny motes of life against a backdrop of -level, desolate loneliness. - -They crossed ancient beds of rock, where once, in forgotten eons, a -sea had rolled. Here Kael had to lift and carry Flaith, for her thin -sandals were gone, and her white feet were red with blood where the -stones had cut them. - -They went on and on. They stopped at an oasis, here and there, to -quench their thirst in the cool waters of a subterranean spring. They -ate of the dried figs and bits of hard black bread that Lunol carried -in his girdle. - -Toward dusk of their sixth day on the desert, Lunol cried out. They -focussed eyes salt-encrusted with dried sweat where his finger pointed. - -"There! See yonder, and know Lunol did not lie!" - - * * * * * - -There was livid fear in the eyes of the old peddler as he gestured at -the glistening black pile of the tower lifting upward from the sand. It -was almost as if he expected to see something dark and fearsome slip -from the basalt blocks and come hunting him. - -"It's been there for thousands of years," he whimpered. "Even when the -balangs roamed these sands, the tower was there." - -Flaith came close to Kael. "I'm frightened! There's something wrong -with it." - -Kael snorted and walked forward through the sand, ploughing his way -where the wind had piled thick granules. Flaith ran a few steps after -him, her hand seeking his arm. Behind them, could hear the peddler -moaning. - -"I tell you," he chattered, "I've seen it come out of the tower on -clear nights when there wasn't a wind stirring across the sand. It just -moved around, all white and shining, making the sand lift and whirl, -like a storm down off the Barakian hills. It was cold. Terribly cold! -The sand was frozen solid where it had been." - -The McCanahan stared at the tower. It was tall, formed of black basalt, -a thick column of rock that was windowless and seemingly doorless. -At the base of the column was a long, low building that stretched on -either side of the tower for forty feet. Two red pylons, carved and -polished, stood like pointing fingers at its ends. - -The old peddler was wringing his hands. "It wasn't human, that thing. -It could kill as easy as a harlot winks! Once I saw a hare run past it. -It stretched out a thin wire of that cold white stuff and touched the -rabbit, and the rabbit died. I'm afraid!" - -Kael turned and caught the old peddler, yanking him to him. - -"You've bleated and brayed ever since we got out of Clonn Fell! Go back -if you want!" - -The old man's eyes glazed in his brown face. A wind stirred the wisps -of whitish hair that straggled from under his kufiyah, and the springs -of thin beard that fluttered on his chin. He seemed to shake himself, -and at an effort, his eyes cleared. - -"No! No! You saved me from the sfarri. I told you the tower was the -only place where the sfarri never came, on all of Senn. But to go to -the tower, to meet that thing--" - -The McCanahan let the old man go, gently. He was ashamed of the burst -of rage that had shaken him. He drew in a lungful of the hot desert -air. He was alone on Senn. His comrades in the _Eclipse_ had been -destroyed. The High Mor was seeking him across a world, and to have -this peddler whimpering his fear in his ears was proving too much. - -He said gently, "Sorry, old one! Sooner or later the sfarri will come -here to the tower. After they have searched all Senn. They will find -us. Maybe inside that tower--" - -Lunol shivered. "No man can live inside the tower. No man can approach -it. Death strikes down all who try! I've seen too many animals run -close to it and--hofff!--they go up in smoke! There's a band of death -all around it. If you go too close, you'll be the one to turn into -smoke!" - -Kael McCanahan shrugged. "As well go up in smoke as die under a Thorn -blaster held in a sfarran hand!" - -He went on alone. - -Flaith whimpered, watching him. She crouched, her long-nailed fingers -digging into the soft flesh of a white thigh. Her eyes were wide, -frightened. - -He went twenty feet, then thirty. He grew smaller, walking across the -flat stretch of dunes toward the great black tower. - -As he walked, the McCanahan threw his blaster, fastened on a length of -rope, ahead of him. If some electrical force was probing, it would seek -out the metal of his addy-gun and shatter it. - -Nothing happened to the gun. - -He walked on and on. - -No death struck at him. Now he stood under the shadow of the great -gateway that was formed of a queer, sleek marble that held green fire -frozen beneath its glazed surface. He put a hand on the gate and pushed. - -To his surprise, the doorway opened, noiselessly. - -Kael moved under the arched gateway, into a region of dim light and -sharp black shadow, where a towering pile of glass and metal bulked -huge in the center of the hall. - -And then his legs crumbled beneath him, and Kael McCanahan went down, -onto the tiled yellow flooring of the tower room. - - - IV - -He floated bodiless in space. The stars swirled about him, moving -endlessly in their orbits. This was death, he knew. But it was a -strange form of death, for here and there he could recognize familiar -constellations, saw nebulae and galaxies that he knew. - -_This is not Noorlythin!_ - -The voice swirled about him, rumbling out of the black stretches of -space itself. The McCanahan could feel eyes on him, hidden eyes that -probed at him, lancing through him with the remorseless certainty of a -surgeon's electroniscalpel. - -_This is a Terran. A man named McCanahan. He is frightened!_ - -_He was within the tower. Only Noorlythin could live in that trap of -hell. I do not understand!_ - -Something touched him, as gently as a Spring breeze off the sea. And -with the touching, the eyes of Kael McCanahan came open to the robed -figures that floated between the stars. He tried to see their faces, -but only a blinding whiteness returned his stare, under the low hoods -of the robes. - -_Seek not our faces, Terran. To you, we are as the sun!_ - -His tongue was thick and swollen. He mumbled. He swallowed, as if to -clear his throat. - -"Where am I? Who are you? I walked into the tower and--" - -What had happened to him on that yellow floor? His knees had buckled -and he had gone down with an intangible force crushing him. Kael shook -his head. - -_We are the Doyen. An ancient race, a race of once-men who have lived -out the span of our lives a million centuries. In that time, we -changed. Our bodies evolved upward from their primal shape, striving -always to progress to that last, final shape of all._ - -"Noorlythin? He is one of you?" - -_Once he was. But Noorlythin could never forget the adoration that was -showered on us by the sfarri. He hungered to be worshipped as a god, -as once he was, many eons ago. Noorlythin turned his back to us, the -Doyen. He has gone back, resuming the primal shapes of the men whose -race is young._ - -Fear came to McCanahan there among the stars. It crept in through the -unspoken words of the robed things, clutching at his mind with frozen -fingers. He shook uncontrollably before he could assert himself. - -"This Noorlythin. You seek him?" - -_He has broken the Doyen law. He has become as an animal. With his -powers, he can be a god to any primal race. No primate can stand to -him, and well he knows it. When he is ready, when he has used the -sfarri to conquer all the primal races of the galaxy, he will ascend -into the living sacristy of the Temple of Sharrador. There, once again, -he will be worshipped with living sacrifices, with orgies that only a -primal race can conceive and execute._ - -The McCanahan said, "You aren't telling me all this just to talk." - -_You are a poor servant. Your flesh is weak. Yet must we use you -against Noorlythin!_ - -"How? How can I help?" - -And then all space was shaking, flowing in a liquid stream, inward -toward a whirlpool of light that swam around and around, sucking the -stars and the black deeps of space into its maw. And as the stars and -space flowed faster and faster, so flowed McCanahan stretched and -lengthened and tortured.... - - * * * * * - -He sat on the yellow tile of the ancient tower. A tumble of red hair -shifted and tossed before him as Flaith's white hand shook him. Beyond -her, near the open green marble door, stood the peddler. His eyes -burned with the fright in his face. - -"Kael! You were so still. I thought you dead!" - -She helped him to his feet. He swayed, almost retching with the pain -that spasmed his muscles. Flaith was a blur of white before him. He put -his hands to her soft shoulders, and his fingers dug in. He held to -her, as to reality. - -Slowly the floor solidified and steadied beneath his buskined feet. The -pain slid away, slowly, then with greater speed. - -"Out there," he said thickly. "Things. Bright things. Maybe made -of energy itself. They spoke to me. Told me about something named -Noorlythin. It was as if I was suspended in space itself. Want me to -help them." - -Flaith came against him until the hard tips of her breasts burned his -naked chest. Her voice was a flow of terrified sound. - -"The Doyen! They are the Doyen! We on Senn always thought they were -just a myth, like the balangs! They are gods, Kael! The gods of all -space!" - -The McCanahan grunted. "Well, gods or not, they want to make a servant -out of me. They want me to help them round up some character named -Noorlythin." - -From the doorway the peddler groaned. His eyes rolled in his head. A -white froth bubbled on his lips. - -"Noorlythin, the evil! Noorlythin, who lived in the olden days, when -all Senorech worshipped him with blood sacrifices. Even today, on the -altar in the Temple of Krebb, the dark stains are still there!" - -The McCanahan turned away to stare upward at the great metal machine -that bulked monstrous in the dim light. It was formed of black steel -and silvery chrome. Its tubes and power relays were inset under thin -glass globules so that it resembled a gigantic, transparent-backed -spider. High above its arching shell, reaching upward into the dimness -of the tower itself, were half a hundred floating, glowing balls that -danced and spun in the wind eddies. - -Stretching on either side of the central hall were wide corridors, -their walls lined by glass bubbles that projected outward like bulging -eyes. - -The McCanahan moved toward the near corridor, his eyes caught by a -scene within one of the glassine bubbles. Flaith followed him, afraid -to be alone. - -They halted before a curving prism, discovering it to be a dioramic -window that seemed to peer into the heart of a distant planet. Flaith -whispered, "It's the planet Sfar! I'd know those cold-faced men -anywhere!" - -Frozen, tiny faces stared back at them from a great, white city, set -like a jewel on the shore of a wide, blue sea. The little figures were -caught in a locked moment of time, attending to their duties. Some -moved with weapons, some drove sleek monocars. - -"There's something about them," Kael muttered, scowling. "They're so -perfect! They make every move count as if it would be their last. Each -of them is long and lean, with bright, keen eyes that never miss a -thing!" - -Flaith put a hand on the glassine bubble, leaning closer, staring down -at the magnified scene. "It's funny, but--" - -Her slant eyes slid sideways at the McCanahan, amusement swimming -in them. "I've noticed something that I thought _you'd_ see, Kael -McCanahan!" - -His eyes studied the girl in front of him as she cocked her head at -him. Even in her tattered garments, through which the McCanahan caught -disturbing glimpse of white, rounded flesh, the redhaired Flaith was a -tantalizing morsel of womanhood. He put out a long arm and drew her in -against him. - -"Och, now what would I have been missing that you, with your cat's -eyes, have seen?" - -She shrugged elaborately. "If you haven't missed them, I won't tell--" - -"Shades of Bridget na Gablach! Their women!" - -"They have no women! No man of Senorech has ever seen a sfarran girl. -Rumor says that they shelter them because of their loveliness. But if -this a diorama of the sfarran planet, and there are no women, then--" - -Kael grunted. "You and your crazy theories! Look, woman! See for -yourself. There are women there. There must be women!" - -But though they hunted along all that corridor, staring at the -sfarran world and its divers shapes and colors, its desert storms and -wind-tossed seas, its magnificent white cities that looked like milky -jewels, they found no woman. - -For two hours they hunted, until the McCanahan discovered that by -moving a red lever he could make the scenes within the bubbles come -to life. The tiny men moved, as if released from a frozen tomb. They -walked and piloted their vessels, and went about their tasks. Yet even -so, no woman appeared. - -"It's some sort of televisic communicator," the McCanahan muttered, -"that's spacecasting across a billion billion miles of space." - -"They have no hospitals, either," said Flaith in a troubled voice. - -"Now what will you be meaning by that?" - - * * * * * - -The redhead smiled wryly. "Even in this advanced day and age on -Senorech, Kael my darling, women still go to hospitals to have their -babies!" - -The McCanahan scowled. "And if there are no hospitals, they'll have -their brats at home, won't they?" - -"Brats, indeed!" flared Flaith, whirling, chin high. - -"Peace, peace," grinned Kael. "It's only teasing I was. But I begin to -see your drift, mavourneen. No women, no hospitals, no children. Then -the sfarri are not human. Or maybe it's because they're ovopoid. Maybe -they're sexless, like an amoeba, or maybe they fertilize themselves and -lay an egg to hatch a little sfarran." - -"There are no little sfarri. All are grown men. Every last one." - -McCanahan brooded with his lower lip thrust out. "No little ones. No -coibche to bind a man and a woman in holy matehood. No women, even, to -comfort a man when he's sad with loneliness. Then they aren't human, -with no heart in their chests to beat a little faster at the kiss from -a woman's lips. And if they have no hearts, they must be-- - -"_Robots!_" - -The McCanahan walked in his excitement, taking long steps that drew -him past the metal machine with its glass-encased tubes and wirings. -"_Robots!_ No wonder they're perfect! No wonder it is that none has -ever been caught by a Terran battle fleet for questioning! Being -robots, they destroy themselves before capture. And being robots, too, -they fight with the same mechanized, incredible fury that's smashed a -dozen war fleets between Achernar and Sol." - -The McCanahan was warming to his subject. "We fought the sfarri across -a score of galaxies, ever since my grandfather Rhoderick--bless his -memory!--first crossed atomic disintegration beams with their cruisers. -They've pushed us back, away from the Rim planets. Everywhere our -paths have met, there's been bloody war. Bloody? Ha! There's been no -blood spilled on their side. Just cogs and wheels and wire!" - -Flaith tossed back a lock of reddish gold hair from before her eyes. -"You killed them in Clonn Fell. You slew them when you touched your -harp strings! The sound did it." - -"The harp of Brith Tsinan. Aie! It had the silver string that I took -from my father's wrist attached to it. Do you remember how I broke the -other, when I threw the harp on the road from Akkalan? Where is the -harp, Flaith?" - -The old peddler came shuffling forward from the doorway, dropping his -shoulder to loosen the strap that held the black sack to his back. From -the sack the bright silver harp tumbled into the McCanahan's eager -fingers. - -He lifted the harp and set it to his shoulder. His hands played across -the strings, and the wild sharp peal of the strings swept up and -through the tower. - -In answer to the high, keening notes, a tube in the great metal machine -spanged shrilly. The tinkle of broken glass was loud in the sudden -silence as Kael dropped his fingers from the quivering harp strings. - -Lunol, the peddler, cried out harshly, his face a wet mass of sweating -fear. Flaith screamed high and shrill. Her bare arm lifted and pointed. - -The McCanahan whirled, and his harp fell from numb fingers. - -Bright and blazing, like the core of a giant sun, a whirling mass of -fiery matter whirled and quivered, pulsing before the great machine. -Its incandescence was blinding, brilliant. They could read the fury in -the flame of its sentient heart. They needed no voice to tell them. - -_Noorlythin!_ - -The sunburst of brilliance lifted, shuddering. It foamed and grew, -incandescent in the sheer brilliance of the white fire that burst and -bloomed within it. - -A thin stream of fire reached out, touched Lunol and laved him in its -blinding whiteness. - -And Lunol shrank in upon himself, grew smaller, almost tiny within the -bubble of brilliance that held him. He grew, then. Expanded suddenly. -And where Lunol and the hungry white fire had been was just blackened -smoke, drifting across the yellow floor. - -Flaith turned her face in against Kael's chest. Her fingers bit their -nails convulsively into his flesh. Her body shook so badly that its -trembling moved the McCanahan as he stood on firmly planted legs. - -Another pencil of fire stabbed out. - -Stabbed out, and-- - -Halted! - -In midair it halted, spreading across an invisible wall of nothingness -that was erected before the McCanahan and the girl he held. - -There was puzzlement in the pulsing of the thing, in the blind, angry -dartings of the pencil-beam of flame. It moved to the floor, and -quested upward to the ceiling. It darted from wall to wall, seeking to -penetrate the barrier that sheltered its victims. - -And now the amazement was gone. The white fire burned lower, as if -afraid. - -In sheer anger, that made it blaze so brightly that Kael cried out and -lifted a hand to hide his face, the thing stabbed again. And again, -hungrily, raging with insane fury. - -_The Doyen shelter you! Only the Doyen could stand against the power of -my will!_ - -McCanahan could feel the anger fall away before the fear that ate at -the thing. Almost, he could hear its thoughts. Perhaps it wanted him to -hear his thoughts. - -_They can save you for a little while. But they cannot shelter you -forever. Not from Noorlythin-the-Doyen can they save you forever! I -shall work my will on you yet, man of Terra! You will crawl on bloody -stumps for legs, waving handless arms for mercy! Begging me with -tongueless mouth for the boon of death!_ - -It came to McCanahan that the thing spoke out of the grip of its own, -paralysing terror. It mouthed threats to bolster its own esteem. - -Kael put his mind to the task and forced a laugh between his lips. He -made his laugh mocking, challenging. - -"You'll never kill me, Noorlythin! I am servant to the Doyen. Such as -the Doyen protect those whom they select to serve them!" - -The thing that was Noorlythin pulsated like a stream of cobwebs caught -in a mad wind. It lifted and shook, swirled and bellied. - -And then, suddenly, it was quiet. It hung a foot above the yellow tile, -barely moving. And the inertia of the thing was more frightening than -all its blinding brilliance. - -_The Doyen play the game according to its rules. They will not let me -harm you with my Doyen powers. Only by other gifts can I let the life -from your body, Terran! So be it!_ - - - V - -And the thing was gone, blanking instantly from sight with nothing left -behind to show its presence but a bit of black dust stirring restlessly -on the tiling as a breeze came in off the desert and moved down the -long corridor. - -"Poor Lunol," whispered Flaith. "Oh, the poor old man!" - -The McCanahan lifted his harp and stared dumbly at its glittering -surface of polished silver. "The string from my father's wrist broke -the tube in the machine. It summoned up Noorlythin from--from wherever -he was hidden." - -"How can you use that knowledge?" wondered Flaith. - -Kael shook his head. "I don't know yet. But I will. Somehow, I'll find -out the truth." He lifted his head and peered about the great tower. -"And where better to begin than here?" - -They ate dried meat plucked from Flaith's girdle-pouch, chewing on -hard black bread. And then they slept, with Flaith cuddled against the -McCanahan's length, with his own head pillowed on an arm, both of them -stretched at the foot of the great metal machine. - -It was the McCanahan who stirred first, rising from the soft body of -the girl, carefully so as not to disturb her. He wandered about the -tower, studying the strange machines that glistened at him from the -shadows. A man would need a dozen lifetimes to understand these things, -he told himself. He would find no help from them. - -He tried to fight the pall of bitter despair that lay across his -shoulders. He was the servant of the gods of space, caught up by them -to hunt out and punish another god. - -Laughter touched his lips; but the bitterness in it stung like acid. - -How does one fight a god? How does one go about killing a thing that is -made only of white, radiant energy? A thing that by a mere touch of the -blazing brightness that comprises it, can blast him and all his kind to -a black dust that shifts restlessly across a floor, flung by an errant -breeze! - -His fists were clenched until the knotted muscles of his forearms -ached. "I can't do it," he told the machines. "I'm only a man. I can't -fight against a god!" - -Deep within him, he knew that someone had to make this fight, that -someone from one of the thousands of Terran worlds had to face -Noorlythin, had to stand to him and his awesome power, or the human -race itself would go down, crushed and torn and flung into nothingness, -as a sand castle went down before the relentless roll of the ocean. - -When that happened, the sfarri and the Senn would expand, would lift -their faery castles and their monstrous, monolithic palaces, where now -Terran buildings stood. And those of the Senn would have their pick of -the women of Earth. - -Of women like-- - -Flaith! - -He turned to find her stretched on her back, her eyes regarding him -wistfully. A shred of her gypsy costume was caught over one shoulder, -falling away from the push of her nearly bared breasts. The thin stuff -at her waist hugged round hips and full upper thighs. The breath caught -in the McCanahan's throat as his eyes ran over her. - -She was a woman to steal the breath of a man from his lungs, and send -his senses running in a saraband. She was the dream of every lonely -spaceman at his battle station, of every thul-prospector hanging to a -wandering asteroid with fingers and a suction clamp. With her red hair -frothing over the witchery of her cream-skinned shoulders, she was -Deirdre herself, the perfect woman. - -Something of his tangled senses came to Flaith and she laughed, with -the throaty womanness of her pleased at the worship in his eyes. - -In the middle of her laughter, a shadow came and lay on the yellow -flooring between them. - -A sfarran officer stood tall and lean in the open doorway of the tower, -a glittering Thorn blaster in his right hand. - - * * * * * - -The officer regarded them coldly. It came to Kael as he stood dumbly -returning that hard glance, that he had never seen a sfarran smile. - -"You will come with me at once." - -He stood sideways to the green marble doors, giving them room to pass -him. Flaith scrambled to her feet; eyeing the gesture with which the -officer moved his blaster. The McCanahan bent and lifted his harp, and -thrust it into the black sack that had once belonged to dead Lunol the -peddler. - -Then he was walking with Flaith out the pylon gateway of the tower, -across the hot sands toward the black hull of a sleek sfarran cruiser. - -He was midway through the hatch when he paused, staring. - -There were sfarran men and officers inside the ship, but they were -slumped over queerly, in distorted postures and attitudes. He had seen -the sfarri like that in Clonn Fell, when he had plucked at the strings -of his harp. But here he had not struck those strings! - -Last night he had played for Flaith and Lunol. And when he had played, -a tube in the great, glistening tower machine had cracked into a -thousand different fragments. - -That breaking tube might have summoned up Noorlythin from whatever hell -he dwelt. - -"Move in, Earther," said the officer behind him. - -Kael went with Flaith, at the officer's orders, to an upholstered bench -set against a panelled wall. The officer brooded at them, and they -could read the raw hate that lay deep in his black eyes. - -The officer said, "You ought to be rayed down here, to save the High -Mor the agony of listening to your pleas for mercy. But yours is a -grave offense. An offense no man or woman has ever committed before. It -calls for grave punishment." - -Flaith's hand trembled in Kael's big fist. - -The officer said, "The High Mor commissioned me to bring you to him. -I would be derelict in my duty were I to do otherwise. And I, Captain -Herms Borkus, intend to commit no such infraction." - -The black eyes studied them. There was curiosity swimming in their -depths, mixed with the hot hate, and a grudging respect. He turned away -and went forward to the control chamber. Kael could hear the clicking -relays picking up the automatic transmission. The ship lifted easily, -its null-gravity humming with smooth insistence. - -Flaith whispered, "The harp, Kael. You'll kill him as you killed the -others!" - -But Kael only gestured at the sfarri that lay in the strange and -distorted attitudes, or sprawled on the floor. And even as he gestured, -the first of these dead sfarri stirred and sat up, looking about him. -Others moved then, silently, turning at once to their duty posts, -resuming their tasks as if they had never been interrupted. - -"Mother of balangs!" whispered Flaith, her eyes wide and troubled under -their long red lashes. "They live!" - -The McCanahan was half out of his seat, his mind questing. _They were -dead, but now they live. Like machines, turned off and on!_ He thought -of the cracking tube in the black tower, and the sfarri that had fallen -in the square in Clonn Fell. Dimly, he began to grasp the power of the -harpstring that he had lifted from his father's wrist. It smashed the -tubes in the power-boxes that fed the sfarri their energy. Without that -power, they were idle machines. - -With the trained mind of the spacefleet officer, he saw the -possibilities of such harpstring, in the form of a vibrator that would -spacecast a flow of microwaves from the battle wagons of the fleet. -With a series of these vibrations fanning out ahead of them, Solar -Combine ships could more than hold their own with the sfarri. For at -the touch of those microwaves, the sfarri that ran their spaceships -would slump in their form of death. - -Bitter mockery rose inside the McCanahan as he sat hunched over. He -had the knowledge, but what use was it? He was being carried to an -extremely painful death in the damp dungeons of the High Mor's palace. - - * * * * * - -Herms Borkus came toward them from the control chamber. He stared from -one to the other. At last he said, "How did you do it? In Clonn Fell, -we found our officers and men lying as if dead. As this ship neared -the Tower of Noorlythin, my men slumped over unconscious." - -Kael shrugged. "I've a powerful evil eye, friend. I cast it at those I -don't like and--well, you saw the result." - -Borkus said coldly, "You talk foolishly. There is no such thing as the -evil eye. What is the answer?" - -"Oh, now look!" began Kael, when the thought struck him. _Borkus is a -sfarran, yet he did not succumb to the lack of power!_ Kael turned the -words on his tongue, and said, "I was talking sense, captain. In my -family, as far back as the time of Niall of the Nine Hostages himself, -one of the McCanahans has always possessed the evil eye. It's a daft -thing, and I'm not understanding it myself, any too well, but it's the -only explanation I can give." - -Borkus looked at Flaith, but his eyes did not linger on her beauty, and -showed no more emotion than a dog would show staring at a building. -From Flaith, his eyes swung to Kael who could read the thought that was -gripping the officer. _He's wondering if he can strike at me through -her._ But that was the way of a man who lacked confidence in his own -abilities, and Kael knew that this man before him had powers he had not -yet used. - -The sfarran captain shrugged and moved away. He threw back over his -shoulder, "The High Mor will know how to deal with you. After all, it -is his duty, not mine." - -For five hours, Flaith and McCanahan huddled together on the -upholstered bench in the sfarran ship. With each passing moment, the -bleakness in the soul of the McCanahan grew darker and more empty. - -The ship landed on the palace grounds, shuddering slightly as it -dropped onto the metallic tanbark. A moment after its vanes were -clamped, Flaith and the McCanahan were crossing the landing field, -moving down a stone ramp that led to the dungeons. - -A burly man, with black hair matted over his naked chest, clanked a -ring of keys at their approach. He preceded them along the torchlit -corridor until he paused at an empty cell. - -The cell was unlocked, and the McCanahan thrust inside. And then a -sobbing Flaith was dragged away from him, in the grip of one of the -burly man's hairy paws. - -Kael McCanahan was a spaceman, and spacemen are generally, without -quite being aware of it, excellent philosophers. He tested the bars of -the cell, found them to be formed of Mollystil, and went over to the -cot, where he lay on his back, staring at the blank ceiling. Within -five minutes he was asleep. - -He woke to the touch of a soft hand on his chest, to find a woman bent -above him, her limpid brown eyes soft with pity. A tumble of yellow -hair framed her oval face. - -"I bring you food and drink, lord. You will need your strength for what -lies ahead." - -Kael laughed harshly. "Better to be weak and near death when the High -Mor begins his tortures." - -She moved closer. She was fragrant with some Senn perfume, and the -little she wore--a red silk thing twisted about her loins, with a -slavegirl's golden chains about her throat--showed her body to be -exquisite, even in the half-light of the cell. The McCanahan read the -pity in her eyes, and began to take interest. - -"Sometimes, those live the longest who have no false pride," she told -him. - -"You give me hope. Were you sent to do that?" - -There was reproach in her eyes, and she started to draw away. The -McCanahan caught her slim wrist and held her. - -"Who sent you with your tempting offers?" - -She pouted at him. "No man sent me. I am Slyss, the slave girl from -Aakkan." She rubbed her wrist when he released her, unconsciously -posing for his eyes. - -The McCanahan said, "Tell me more!" - -But she shrugged a white shoulder and went to stand by the cell bars -while he ate. When he was done, she took his tray and wooden bowl and -mug, and walked off with them, unlocking the cell door with a key that -hung from her wrist, attached to a thick metal manacle. - -Her hips wriggled as she went, and she threw a glance at him over her -shoulder. Her voice was music as she carolled a farewell. - -She left the McCanahan with a fever of impatience in him. He strode -back and forth in his cell. His hands tested the Mollystil bars a -hundred times. He told himself that the Senn did not love the sfarri -overmuch, that the Senn, being descended from animal ancestors, had no -common ground with a race of robot men. He asked himself where in this -pile of giant masonry Herms Borkus had hidden Flaith. If he could get -away, if he could use this yellow-haired slave girl to unbar these cell -doors for him, he would find Flaith and flee. - -Flee? - -Where on all Senorech was there sanctuary for Kael McCanahan? - -The slave girl told him when next she brought his food. This time, he -was awake and restless, and her soft, quick tread was like music to his -ears. - - * * * * * - -She came close to him, with only the width of the little tray between -his chest and her breasts that stirred gently to her quickened -breathing. Her brown eyes were full of gentle pity as they studied his -haggard face and sunken eyes. - -"Lord, you were never meant for prison bars! If only you would trust -me, I know a way that leads from the palace." - -"Trust you, Slyss? I'd love you for a chance at freedom." - -Again she preened, smiling as he wolfed the food. "Only for that?" - -His eyes studied her. She was a lovely thing, slim and gently rounded. -Beside the flame-haired Flaith she was a cooling breeze, but he knew -many men who would have walked through the fires of Nanakar for an hour -in her arms. - -"Not only for that," he told her. "You're a sight to send a man's blood -to pounding in his veins. You don't look like a slave girl. You're much -too beautiful." - -Her laughter was soft, pleased. She came and sat beside him, so that -her hip and thigh were warm on his. She carried perfume in the yellow -hair that dripped on her shoulders. It was rare perfume, and the -McCanahan thought that if her mistress knew about it, that creamy back -would be striped with red whipwelts. - -"There are men of the Senn who hate the sfarri," she whispered close -to his ear. "Rumors have come to them that you possess some strange -weapon, some magic means of killing the hated sfarri." - -The McCanahan swallowed the cheap wine that had been chilled in a coil -of refrigerated stil. He nodded. "I know a way." - -It was on his lips to say more when his sidewise glance surprised a -momentary gleam in the gentle brown eyes. He needed no psychiatrist to -read that triumph for him, even though it was quickly veiled behind her -curving lashes. _Now why should a slave girl of the palace know that -feeling because of what I said?_ he asked himself. - -The McCanahan put his arm about the girl, drew her in against him. With -his lips buried in the yellow mass of her hair, he whispered, "It ought -to be worth a lot to the Senn to get that knowledge! With such a weapon -they need never fear the sfarri again. They could cast them out! Even -seek alliance with the Solar Combine!" - -It was his last words that tensed the muscles across her soft back. -Instantly, the muscles were relaxed, and she melted closer against him, -her soft lips moving across his face to find his lips. - -The McCanahan kissed her. Why not? But he was warned, and only a fool -disregards a warning. And Kael McCanahan, as he drank from the scented -lips of Slyss the slave girl, was even then congratulating himself that -no McCanahan was ever a cursed gossoon. - -He let her go after a while. She was a pleasant little thing, but she -was no Flaith. He said, "Suppose I agree to trade my weapon for freedom -from the High Mor? How do I know the Senn can guarantee my liberty?" - -"I have the keys," she whispered. "Tonight I will come for you, to lead -you through the dungeons, to the vaults below the dungeons, where the -sea seeps in through solid rocks. No sfarran ever walks down there. It -is a dead, damp place. But the Senn go there to hide from the sfarri. -It is the one safe place on all Senorech. Slyss will take you there." - -He lingered over her lips, close by the unlocked cell door, to bind -their bargain. But when she was gone, he took to pacing his cell, his -brows drawn together. She wants more than the body of Kael McCanahan, -that one, he told himself. The weapon I possess, and me! Or am I -playing the buffoon in thinking she was fond of me? He went back over -their meetings and discovered to his chagrin that each of her moves -seemed calculated. Like a sfarran! Cold, careful! Even her kisses -lacked the fire such a woman should bring to them! - -As the sun sank below the hills above Akkalan, the McCanahan rested. -He was fresh when Slyss came to him on her bare feet, her key grating -silently into the cell lock. "Slib, the jailer, lies drugged with -wine," she told him. "He won't stop us." - -She went quickly along the cell corridor ahead of him. At an -intersection in the rock walls she slipped to the right, into dark -shadows. He heard the rough grate of metal, and a section of the floor -was rising and falling, as a balanced slab of rock fell back to expose -a number of handhewn stone ledges that served as steps. - -Slyss went first. The McCanahan came after her, and at her whispered -bidding, tilted the stone slab back into place. An instant before -it fell, as his eyes were still above the floor level, he saw a man -standing in the cell corridor, grinning at him. - -The McCanahan almost cried out to Slyss. - -The man in the cell corridor was burly, with black hair matted over his -chest. He jangled a ring of keys at his side. It was Slib, the jailer, -and his little eyes were clear and evil. - -No man who lay drugged with wine ever boasted eyes like that! The only -thing that troubled Kael was whether Slyss knew the jailer was awake -and watching. If she knew, then he was being led into a trap, like a -steer to the axing. If she did not know, then she was taking herself -unwittingly into that same trap. - -The McCanahan kicked off his buskins and walked with bare feet after -the girl, along the cool damp floor of the sea vaults. In olden days, -the primal men of Senorech had made their coves in these vaults to -escape the ravening monsters of the dawn era. Here and there, in the -light of the torches along the wall, he could see piles of white, -bleached bones. - -They walked for more minutes before he heard the faint rasp of metal -touching rock. - -Slyss was whirling, crying out. - -From the shadows, men came leaping. As he plunged sideways, Kael noted -that they were hardfaced Senn warriors. There was not a sfarran among -them. - -The McCanahan used his fist like a club, bringing its balled weight -down in a full arm stroke, hitting the nearest man at the side of his -neck, and driving him sideways into his companions. Before the man's -falling club touched the floor, Kael held it, bringing it upward in a -ceilingwise blow into the middle of the next man's belly. - -Kael McCanahan had fought in the port taverns of Marsopolis and -Dunverick. He had traded fists with Deneban dockwallopers and Karrvan -stevedores. He knew every trick in the creeds of a dozen fighting races. - -He used them all in the sea vaults below Akkalan. He used the club like -a sword, driving it hard into a Senn's face. He hit backwards with it. -He used an overhand, downward stroke, that drove the inches-long spikes -that studded its knob, deep into a man's braincase. - -It is no easy matter for ten men to cage one man. Not in dimly lighted -pits, with that one man an explosive cyclone of fists and bashing club. -Ten men keep getting in the way of each other. And Kael McCanahan was -there to make each mistake a costly one. - -He cut his opponents down to five in those first few minutes. Then he -was at the wall, ripping loose the olisene-drenched torch, hurling it -in their faces, to splatter in thick little globs of burning chemicals. - -With their screams of pain ringing in the sudden darkness, the -McCanahan slid forward into the blacker shadows. Out of sight he ran. - -He found a tunnel that sliced at an angle into the main vault. He went -along it, his bare feet making no sound. - -He discovered another converging corridor and raced along that. Inside -ten minutes, he lost himself in the labyrinthine vaults. - -He came to a halt in the blackness, lungs gulping at cool air that was -faintly spiced with seasalt. He listened, but heard no sound. When his -heart ceased to thud so heavily against his ribs, he moved again. But -now he went more cautiously, with the club before him like an overlong -arm, probing the darkness. - -He felt the cool updraft of air, just as his feet went out from under -him. - - - VI - -He slid for thirty feet on a wet ramp that dropped him flat on his back -on the floor of a huge chamber lighted by radio-active filaments set -flush to the stone walls. At the far end of the vast room, two mighty -metal doors were hung on great bronze hinges. - -On the floor of the room rested a hundred great daises. And on each -dais lay a man or a woman. - -"A tomb," the McCanahan muttered. "I've found one of the Senn burial -chambers." - -As he crawled to his feet and stared, he knew that this was no tomb. -The bodies were flushed with life, and clad in the uniforms and -trappings of a hundred different people. The McCanahan rubbed a bruised -shoulder and went to walk among the daises. - -A shepherd boy with a ragged sheepskin across his loins and over one -shoulder, lay beside a trimly garbed officer of the Palace Guard. -Beyond them, a silk-swathed dancing girl lay beside a heavily muscled -halgor-driver, with the brown of the desert sun still on his forehead. - -The McCanahan touched an arm. It was warm. It yielded beneath his -fingers. He tried to rouse the man, without success. - -A face in the third row over from the main aisle tugged at some chord -of memory. He slipped between the daises, to stare down into the cold, -haughty face of Captain Herms Borkus of the Fleet. - -"Now would I had the wisdom of Bridget herself, the wisest woman in all -Ireland," muttered the McCanahan. "Is this a store-room where the High -Mor keeps those he has doomed to some punishment? Is it a place such as -the visi-chambers on Vreer and Anafelm, where men and women spend most -of their lives dreaming? And if it isn't any of these things, what in -the name of the sons of Strongbow is it?" - -He walked on, staring down at the faces of those who lay in this -trance-like slumber. He saw a face or two he knew from remembered -glimpses, in the days when he had walked the court of the High Mor as -the son of the Terran Ambassador. - -And then the McCanahan froze, and the blood in his veins moved with -sluggish torpor. - -Ahead of him, on the two largest daises of all, lay the twin bodies of -the High Mor. - -There was no mistake. He had seen that thin-lipped face too often where -it leered down at Solar Command uniforms from the ruboid throne of -Akkalan. The eyes were staring now, lifeless, but he remembered the -scorn and the supreme contempt that had been in their depths. - -The McCanahan was a baffled man. - -He walked around the coffers, and his lips opened to speak, but no -sound came out. "It's dreaming I am, with the little people flooding -my brain with fancies from a fevered mind! The High Mor, twins--no, -triplets!--for he must sit even now on the throne, dreaming up tortures -for my body." - -The creak of a door-hinge sent him to the floor. - -He stared at the opening door, and smothered a curse in his throat when -he saw the slave girl, Slyss of Aakan, glide into the room. She was -alone. She went to an empty pier and lay upon her back. - -And now the hair at the base of the McCanahan's neck stood straight up, -for something was rising from all along her body. A something that was -white and bright and dazzling, and from where he lay, Kael could feel -the utter coldness of the thing. - -"Noorlythin!" his numbed brain told him, and he hid his eyes. - -He heard a faint tinkling, such a sound as he had heard once before, -when he floated between the stars among the Doyen. He looked, and the -swirling white radiance that was Noorlythin was settling down on one of -the bodies of the High Mor, and the High Mor was sitting up, chafing at -wrists and fingers, swinging his legs to the floor. - -In the ancient legends of Terra, there was mention of an Arabic ruler, -one Haroun al Raschid, who went in disguise among his people, that he -might learn their thoughts and their way of living. It came to the -McCanahan as he lay here that Noorlythin was such a one, but he used no -simple disguises. He took the body of a man, or the body of a woman, -and possessed it. - -Kael retched silently, remembering the caresses he had given the slave -girl. That _thing_ had been inside her, controlling the pity in her -eyes, the poses of her body. It had been Noorlythin who had led him -into the vaults below the castle, for some reason he did not yet know. -It had been Herms Borkus, seeking the secret of his harp. He knew now -why the smashing of the tube in the great machine had not shut off his -lack of motive power, as it had the robotlike bodies of the sfarran -crew. - -"By all the sand on Mars," the McCanahan gritted between his teeth, "I -have a secret worth a thousand suns in my hand. But how can I best use -it?" - -The High Mor was at the huge doors now. He went out without a backward -glance, and the doors slid shut behind him. - - * * * * * - -Kael came to his feet. He looked around him at the faces of the men -and women who lay awaiting the coming of the Doyen. He knew what he -had to do, and his face twisted in repugnance. Without these bodies, -Noorlythin was trapped in the body of the High Mor; he was the High -Mor, and no other. If these bodies were destroyed, smashed beyond -recognition, Noorlythin could never use them, perhaps to appear again -before the McCanahan in the guise of an officer or beautiful woman. - -Kael gripped his club more firmly and walked slowly down the long rows -of coffers. At each dais, he paused a little while and did what had -to be done. Once he stripped a man and donned the uniform of the Senn -Fleet, acquiring the rank of major. - -He left Slyss until the last. - -But when he stood there, looking down into that smooth face, eyeing -the yellow hair that tumbled around the creamy shoulders, he could not -nerve himself to the task at hand. - -"I'll let her be. At least I know her as a cradle for Noorlythin. I'll -be on my guard." - -With a sword at his side and an addy-gun holstered to his service belt, -the McCanahan dropped the club. He went to the doors and swung them -open, and walked out into a long corridor hewn from living stone. - -For nearly an hour he followed that corridor, travelling steadily -upwards. He emerged into a palace guardroom whose rack-hung walls were -filled with handguns and swords, with keen-edged axes and cloaks with -the dragon of the Senn emblazoned on collar and breast. - -And in the guard room, he found the High Mor waiting for him. - -"It is better this way," said the High Mor. "Just the two of us, face -to face. I thought it might be better, as Slyss, to lure you into a -Senn trap, and then to pretend a rescue by my sfarran guards just as -they were about to torture you. I thought I might claim your allegiance -that way." - -The McCanahan showed his teeth. "And after you'd wormed the truth of my -secret weapon out of me, you'd hang me to a rack with the metal hooks -biting into my naked back, and pull on my legs until the hooks came -out. After that--" - -The High Mor waved a hand. - -"There is no need of torture between us, Terran. Oh, at first I wanted -your life. Your father stumbled on a Senn scientist who discovered that -a certain microwave shattered a peculiar type glass much used by the -sfarri, due to sonic disturbances created in the atmosphere. - -"Since the sfarri are a race of robots, created by the Doyen so long -ago that were I to tell you the number of years involved they would -be meaningless to you, they are necessarily energized by machines. In -those machines a klyptric tube, made of that glass, forms an antennae -that picks up and transmits the power generated by the machine. It -broadcasts it in wave-lengths attuned to the internal structure of the -sfarri." - -"You tell me nothing new," Kael grated. "Most of that I learned myself -from putting one and two and three together." - -The High Mor threw back his jeweled cloak and rested a thigh on the -edge of a gaming table. His eyes glittered brightly. - -He said, "You are no fool, Terran. I do not underestimate you, believe -me. I tell you this to explain why I felt it necessary to kill your -father." - -"And Captain Edmunds! And Cassy Garson! And all the men who were in the -_Eclipse_ when your sfarrans rayed her into a smoking ruin just outside -the planetal orbit of Senorech!" - -The High Mor gestured. His graceful white hands waved apology. "For all -that, I am sorry. I made a mistake. Now I offer what I can to atone for -my errors. - -"Join me. Wear my dragon! To you, I promise such power as no man has -ever dreamed. The wants of a Napoleon, or a Bral Kan of Procyon! Not -even Gartillin Vo of Deneb, or Cygnis Hannon will outshine you in the -splendor of your triumphs! - -"Do you think I want to spend my time in this?" and here the High Mor -gestured at his body. "I want to go back to the Temple of Sharrador -where once I dwelt for many ages, worshipped and adored." - -The McCanahan grinned. "You know I recognize you as Noorlythin?" - -"You were in the chamber where I keep the bodies I use. I felt your -presence." - -Kael stared his surprise. - -"I knew you watched," the High Mor went on. "I could have spoken to you -there. But it is better to meet you this way, face to face, away from -those reminders that I am not as you. In a humanoid body, I may speak -with you, as man to man. - -"Only this way can I hope to convince you that I offer you more than -you can ever gain without me. I am no man. I am a god! A god of primal -space! I have lived for eon piled upon eon, hunting and seeking through -the stars, studying the worlds I found. On some I lived for ages, -on others I dwelt for only a little while. All those worlds, Kael -McCanahan, I offer you! - -"Be an emperor, Terran! Rule every planet in all space. The greatest -jewels of Strae'eth or Vrann can be yours, to wear on your person or to -be hung in ropes of diamonds about the neck of any woman in all space! -Lead my battle fleets! On distant Sfar, my technicians shall make you a -hundred billion sfarrans to serve under your banner. They shall make -the greatest warships that ply the starlanes, each one encrusted with -your name!" - -The McCanahan shivered. It was a prospect that shook a man loose from -his moorings. - -To rule the stars! To sit on a throne and gaze out at the peoples of -the universe bowed before him. To have the faery women of Cygni and -Flormaseron in a harem, waiting his pleasure. - -It was a thought that would have appealed to nine men in ten. Kael -McCanahan called himself a fool, but he turned his visions aside. - -"I want no conquests. I want no jewels. The only woman I want is -Flaith. Where is she?" - - * * * * * - -The High Mor sighed. "In a tower, well guarded. No harm has come to -her. No harm will come. I am no sadist to harm a woman. Not when what I -seek is possessed by a man. Tell me, Terran. What is your price?" - -"Peace! Friendship with Terra and the men of Terra. Let the Solar -Combine send its traders to Senorech. Peace between the peoples of the -stars." - -The High Mor laughed. "I too, seek peace. A peace that will end with my -dragon banner floating above the towers of New Washington, Terra. With -your precious Solar Combine run by the sfarri. I offer you a place in -that peace, Kael McCanahan. A high place. The highest place of all! I -am a god! I have no need of earthly things. You do. - -"Give me your answer, Terran!" - -For a moment, the temptation was there. But in that same moment, -the McCanahan remembered the blasted _Eclipse_, and the dead Father -he loved, and Captain Edmunds, straight and lean in his white Fleet -uniform. A memory came to him of Cassy Garson and the kisses she had -given him in a drifting galley on the Tigranian Sea. The High Mor -was not human. He knew nothing of the loves and lusts, the fears and -terrors of human beings. He was as far removed from the Senn and -Terrans as man is from the ant. - -"I answer--no! You'd blacken Earth with your rays and leave empty -ruins. You'd take everything in space! And me--what of me?" - -The High Mor smiled. "You would rule the universe!" - -But Kael McCanahan shook his head stubbornly. "I cannot believe that. -If I once tell you--" - -_Beware, Terran!_ - -The Doyen thought warned him just in time. - -The High Mor brought his hand out from under his cloak and he held a -black-metal stinger in his fingers. It spat a stream of violent fire at -the McCanahan. - -Kael dove sideways. The tip of his finger slipped through the violet -fire and it stung with the agony of seared nerve-ends. If full effect -of that blast had touched him he would be writhing helplessly on the -floor, his body one gigantic mass of pain. - -He had seen the stinger turned on unregenerate killers. It softened -them in a hurry. - -His shoulder hit the edge of the table where the High Mor sat. The -table upended, and the High Mor fell to the floor with him. - -Kael put a hand to the throat of the other man and his fingers -tightened and squeezed. It was like choking a bar of steel. The High -Mor forced a laugh through his lips, and his body twisted like an -uncoiling spring and forced the McCanahan from him. - -"The Doyen warned you. I caught the thought they put in your brain! -Well, let them play their game. They can only interfere with me when I -use my Doyen powers to destroy you. I have other gifts to use!" - -A fist dove at his face, but the McCanahan was a master at rough and -tumble fighting. He slipped it and bored in. His fists drummed into the -High Mor's belly, lifted and threw him back to rebound off the far wall. - -A dozen weapons came tumbling down on the ruler of Senorech. A cloak -swathed his flailing arms. - -Kael stepped back, waiting. - -That was where he made his mistake. For the High Mor slid to the floor -in a crumpled heap, and the thing that was Noorlythin glowed and pulsed -and moved its frosted tendrils, free of its fallen body. - -As Noorlythin moved its tendrils, the floor fell away beneath the -booted heels of the McCanahan. The walls of the guardroom went out of -existence, and Kael was falling, falling. - -_Gird yourself, Terran! You go into subspace where no other living -thing can enter! Not even another Doyen to shield you from my wrath! -For each Doyen has in him the seeds of material creation, and what one -Doyen materializes, no other Doyen can disturb!_ - -And the high, mocking laughter followed him down and down, into the -eternal blackness where he fell. - - - VII - -A hot sun blanketed his naked body. It blazed from a molten sky and -cooked him where he lay on warm red rocks. Kael McCanahan lifted his -head and stared at the searing desolation before him. Sand and rock, -and the shale of evaporated seas, stretching like the finger of Time -to infinity itself, outward to that blazing blue bowl of sky where the -golden sun hung high, pouring down its heat. - -He came to his feet and swayed with the pain that the heat was putting -in his muscles. - -_Come to me! Come! Come!_ - -He put trembling hands to his head, and again that sweet call sounded, -with the siren lure of all the lost treasures of all space. - -He stumbled forward, hearing the summons in his brain, in every fibre -of his being. - -_Come to my riches! Lift up your hands to the jewel that gives man -everything he wants! Touch me! I am yours!_ - -He was running across the hot sands that bit his naked feet with hot -teeth, and over the sharp rocks that cut into his flesh until he bled. -Dimly, he knew that nothing could help him now. That here he was cut -off from everything that was sane. - -This mad world was a creation of Noorlythin. His was the wild brain -that dreamed the sands and the rocks and the awful desolation. His -dream, that sun that cooked while it shone. - -Sobbing, he ran. He fell to his knees, and he crawled. - -With bleeding fingers he clawed at the rocks, making himself rise and -run again. - -It seemed to the man that had once been Kael McCanahan that he was -running around a planet. The pain was part of him, now. His muscles -jerked in agony at every step, yet always he forced himself to run -faster, faster, gulping down the hot desert air. That siren call was -strong in his ears. - -_Run, Terran! Run to me!_ - -He ran on and on, and now he saw the others, men like himself, running -on bleeding feet, crawling when those feet were worn to cracked stumps. -And before each of those men, or before Kael McCanahan's own eyes, -gleamed-- - -_The eye of Lirflane!_ - -A globe of a red jewel it was, the eye. Imprisoned in its faceted -surface were the dreams of a billion people. The man that looked on it -saw the happiness he sought, and he fought to join himself to it, that -his own dreams would add to the total of all the others. And on the -dreams and on the flesh of these men who came to it, drawn by its siren -voice and by the eternity of delight it promised, the eye of Lirflane -feasted, waxed and swelled. - -A man tried to claw at his legs as Kael McCanahan ran past him. Red -eyes in a bloated face hurled hate at him, as his hand closed on his -ankle. - -The McCanahan shook himself free and ran on. - -The eye was closer now. - -It grew massive, transparent. In its redness, the redness of the hair -of flaming Flaith beckoned. Her white body swayed and danced, and her -throaty voice summoned him. - -The McCanahan's arms shook as he put them out, trying to pull himself -forward with handfulls of hot, desert air. - -Now the Eye of Lirflane was before him, and all he could see was Flaith -moving toward him, her arms wide and beckoning-- - -One step he moved, and another. - -His hand went out, toward the gleaming red side of the monstrous jewel. - -_Come to me, Kael McCanahan! Come to the peace and the forgetfulness -you have earned. Take me in your arms. Drink kisses from my lips!_ - -The McCanahan sobbed. - -He shook in torture more vivid than the agony in his feet and muscles. - -"Not Flaith!" he cried. "Not Flaith! You--woman of the jewel! -Witchwoman of Lirflane! Not Flaith!" - -He went to his knees, to anchor himself the better to the ground, -against the siren call of the mighty Eye. - -"No. Got to fight! Get free. Free...." - -He fought there on his knees, while men streamed past him, rushing -with insane desire into the red heaven of the jewel. Their eyes were -mad with the greed or the lust that shook them, for every man saw in -the Eye of Lirflane what his own eyes wanted most to see. Their bodies -were torn and gaunt from their struggle across the sand and rock -desolation. But they would lose their pain, within the bosom of the red -eye. - -Kael fought. He fought silently, until the sweat came out on his face -in big globes, until it runneled down his chest and thighs. His belly -and his back were awash with the salt dampness. - -At last he turned, just a little, so that only a corner of the fabulous -Eye remained in his vision. - -An hour later, he turned again, and now he saw only the barren -loneliness of this abandoned world. And as he stared, the sand and the -rocks and the sky ran with liquid movement as a painting might run in -a bath of chemicals. And the streaming reds and buffs and yellows, the -black and the greens and purples flowed together and formed a river, -that swept the tortured legs of the McCanahan out from under him. - - * * * * * - -He screamed in his agony as the salt water bit into his bleeding -wounds. He babbled and twisted, flailing the salt sea with animal -desperation. He drowned in this vast emptiness of ocean, with no hand -to grasp his or eye to witness his going. - -"No," he shouted to the gray leaden sky above him. "I won't die! I'll -live! I'll live!" - -His arms and his legs moved, and clumsily, he swam. No driftwood -floated here. Here a man had to swim to stay alive, until his arms and -his legs grew numb with his effort, and he sank. - -The McCanahan turned on his back, and the salt water buoyed him up. He -floated for endless days, and during endless nights, and the tiny spark -of life within him waxed and waned. And out of the eternity of no-time, -as he swam and alternately floated, a wing-prowed galley slipped -through the foam-crested waves. Its white sail bellied in the ocean -wind. It veered and came for him, running easily in the water. - -From the rail, a bearded face scowled down at him. A hairy hand threw -a rope that he twisted around his middle. He was dragged on deck, to -stand dripping with the salt water that seared his wounds. - -A rope was whipped around his wet wrists and he was dragged to the slim -mast that rose from the deck, before the oarbanks where slaves pulled -at smooth-handled oars. - -A woman whose flesh was tinted a delicate green came toward him. She -walked with quick, supple strides, and the McCanahan noted numbly that -her eyes were a feral green, and that her tiny ears were pointed. A -whip coiled in her hand. - -She showed her tiny teeth in a cruel smile. - -"You are the man from Terra! You are the one who turned down all the -worlds of space! For that you must be punished!" - -And the long lash went snaking out in an arc, slashing into his back, -and the sheer agony of the cutting whip slammed his body against the -mast. The lash came down and lifted, came down and lifted, and the -McCanahan sagged in the ropes that held him. - -With the cruelty of her species, the cat-woman flogged him. When she -was done, she cut him loose and stood over him on the swaying deck that -was stained with his blood. Her voice was soft, furry. - -"Take him and chain him to an oar! Rivet the manacles on his wrists and -ankles! Let him tug an oar for a year! Then perhaps he will obey Him -who is ALL!" - -He was kicked and shoved across the deck. He tumbled into an empty slot -on an oarbench. His wrists and ankles were shackled, the armorer not -caring where his metal mallet fell. - -For a day he rested, with black bread soaked in wine forced between -his teeth. For a day, he knew only the blessedness of not moving. His -slumber was dreamless-- - -In a red dawn, he was wakened by the bite of an overseer's whip across -his bloody back. His hands lifted and went to the oar-handle, and his -body swayed and returned, and he put his weight with the weight of the -men who held the same oar as he. - -The galley slipped through the heaving ocean, and the red oars flashed -in the sun, and the salt spray stung, and only when an errant wind -swept across the seas was there any rest for the men who slaved on the -benches. Sometimes men died, and were flung overboard. Other men were -unshackled and dragged screaming to the foredeck, where the cat-woman -waited, pink tongue licking her lips, the whip curling like a live -thing in her hands. - -And of all the men who worked the oars in this endless ocean, it was -the McCanahan who was chosen most often for her amusement. - -Once he almost died under the biting whip, and in that moment of pain -and numbness, when his senses seemed about to float from his body, -the cat-woman leaned close and her furry voice whispered, "Speak your -secret to me, man of Terra! Tell me the weapon that slays the sfarri!" - -But the McCanahan only shook his head and his hair, long uncut, tumbled -on his bleeding shoulders. - -The days were endless on that ocean, and the oars swung and the sail -creaked, flapping overhead, and the overseer tramped the runway with -endless patience, his voice a sullen growl. The cat-woman came to look -upon the McCanahan and her slim greenish fingers came forth to stroke -his naked back where her lash had marred it. Always her throaty voice -whispered to him, speaking of the delights that might be found in her -cabin, if only he were not so stubborn. - -When her patience was at an end, she motioned to the overseer and he -came with armed guards and unchained the McCanahan, and he was led to -the mast and roped. - -And then, in the middle of a whipsting, the ocean and the ship and the -cat-woman's whip fell away.... - - * * * * * - -He lay on a hard, cold floor. - -The High Mor stood before him, his hard eyes glittering. Kael was back -in the guardroom that he had left--how long ago? - -"A year," said the High Mor, reading his thought. "A year and five -days! And yet, the barest split second of Time. I sent you out to those -worlds of subspace, Kael McCanahan. There you lived, and almost died. -You rowed at a real oar. You suffered the cuts of a real whip. Look at -yourself!" - -The High Mor threw a small metal mirror at him. Dazedly he stared at -the grim, hard brown face and the cold blue eyes he saw mirrored on its -surface. His flesh was brown, and great muscles swelled under it. The -oar had put those muscles there, as the whip had put the scars on his -ribs and back. - -"Only a split second of our time, Terran," said the High Mor. "But a -year and five days in the worlds I made! I told you I had gifts! I -have made a thousand million worlds for that subspace, in the eons that -I have roamed the stars. I am a god!" - -Kael shook his head and his long hair flicked his naked arms. If he -needed proof of the High Mor's words, his long-uncut hair was proof -enough. - -He thought, _Tell him, and let him have his way! How can a man fight a -god?_ The thought washed over him that he fought for all mankind, that -the men and women of a thousand planets unknowingly depended on his -fight. Women like the flame-tressed Flaith, men like his father and -Captain Edmunds, who did their duty and died for it, all depended on -what he did. - -He had to think, to go over this logically. What would be the thought -processes of a god? A god was no mere mortal, to be judged and weighed -by human wants and failings. In it there was no mercy, no thought for -anything but itself. - -Kael pushed himself away from the floor to stand on long brown legs. - -_Courage, man of Terra! He shall not trap you so again!_ - -The Doyen voice gave him heart, but the High Mor sneered. - -"I heard it, too, Terran! The Doyen cannot help you. Not unless I -strive by Doyen means to kill you. I need not do that, Kael McCanahan, -need I?" - -The McCanahan shook his head like a dumb animal. He would never go back -to that subspace where Noorlythin was a god in truth! To that hell, -where a second was a year, where the Doyen themselves could not enter! - -"I could put you there again, Terran. I could forget you, let you live -out your life for an eternity of seconds that are years! Would you -listen to reason then? Would you like to test your will again against -that of the Eye of Lirflane? Or feel once more the lash of Vigrette, -the cat-woman? No, I read in your eyes that you would not! - -"Come, then. Tell me how you made the sfarri die!" - -_Speak, man of Terra! Tell Noorlythin what he seeks! Only then, as he -absorbs the knowledge, can we reach him!_ - -The McCanahan shrugged the great shoulders that were scarred with the -lash above the smooth roll of their bulging muscles. His head hung so -that his uncut hair shielded his face. - -"The harp," he whispered. "On the harp of Brith Tsinan is a silver -string. The d-note! I strung it with a silvern wire that I loosed from -my father's wrist!" - -And as he spoke, he moved. - -As liquid as the falling waters in the Veil of Valmoora was the leap -of the McCanahan. Full into the High Mor he hurtled, knocking him -sideways. And as they went down together-- - -The Doyen struck! - -The very rocks of the palace misted and swirled under that awesome -clutching. White fire flared and seared, and where it touched, all -matter was destroyed! The walls of the palace shook and quivered. Beams -groaned under the sudden stress. - -Where the guardroom had been, was empty nothingness! - -In a flame that lapped him protectingly as it flared fiercely and -strongly at Noorlythin himself, the Doyen carried both men upward. So -swift was their transmission through normal space that in one blinding -surge of the white flame, the McCanahan found himself between the -worlds, in some lost, dark blotch of empty space. - -"No Doyen may slay another Doyen!" - -That voice rang triumphantly in the abyss. - -"There is a way, Noorlythin! That is why we have let you work your will -on this man. He hates you with a deadly hate, Noorlythin. You put him -in your worlds of subspace, and you abandoned him to the creatures of -your own creation!" - -"Aie! I abandoned him! Were it not for him and his harp, I would reign -as a god on every planet in all inhabited space. The Solar Combine -would have fallen to my sfarran battle fleet!" - -"You dared not move before you knew the one weapon that might defeat -you!" - -"Now I know! Now! Now!" - -The radiant energy in the thing that was Noorlythin was awful. It beat -and flared redly through the whiteness. The McCanahan shuddered as its -heat beat out at him, chilling even as it seared. - -_Courage, Terran! Courage for what lies ahead!_ - -And now the voices shrank and whispered, piping like elfin horns -within his head, that none but he could hear. - -_Through you, we may destroy him! Courage! With your help, he -dies--forever!_ - -He knew what he had to do. Of his free will he had to offer himself -to Noorlythin! Of his free will, he had to fling himself into the mad -embrace of those pulsing tendrils, that had turned Lunol the peddler to -black and drifting dust! - -_He gave you to the Eye of Lirflane! He gave you to the cat-woman and -her whip!_ - -The McCanahan snarled. "Destroy him, and I save the Solar Combine! I -hear you, Doyen. I hear and I--obey!" - -And Kael McCanahan flung himself headlong, forward into the white -whirlwind of force that was Noorlythin. - - * * * * * - -In the Chamber of Living Death, she who had been Slyss of Aakan -quivered fitfully. A bubble of froth broke from her red lips. She -moaned and stirred. A hand lifted, struggled feebly, fell back to her -side, limp and waxen. - -Slyss opened brown eyes. She lay silent, staring upward at the ceiling. -A sob fought its way upward from her throat. - -"Noorlythin is dead! His control over me and the others--gone forever!" - -She rolled off the dais and stared around her, at the dead bodies. She -shivered. She went to the doors and pulled them open. In the distance, -she could hear the frightened roaring of terrified men. She began to -run. - -Flaith shook the bars of the cell that held her. Her red hair made a -living flame about her shoulders. - -"What is happening? What is it?" she screamed. - -A terrified jailer paused in his heavy run past her cell. - -"The palace is falling in! The High Mor is dead. His body has been -found!" - -Flaith shook the barred door. - -"Let me out! Please, please! Give me a chance to save myself!" - -The jailer licked his lips. He glanced up and down the corridor, then -slid the key into the lock. The door opened under a push from his hand. -"If the High Mor is dead," he told the girl, "maybe the sfarri won't -stay here on Senorech! Maybe the Senn can rule themselves, now." - -Flaith caught the man by his arm. - -"The one I was captured with! Kael McCanahan, the Earther! Where is he?" - -"Nobody knows! His cell is empty." - -"His harp? Man, where is his harp?" - -The jailer shook himself free and started down the corridor. Over his -shoulder he called, "Look in the storehouse beyond the cell block. We -keep all prisoners' effects in there!" - -_Terran! Wake to life, Kael McCanahan!_ - -He was dead. He had thrown himself into the fiery maw of the thing that -was Noorlythin. Who called him now? Who spoke these lies? - -_You live, Terran. You served as the catalyst that enabled us to focus -our powers against Noorlythin._ - -Even a high school student knew that a catalyst retained its own -identity during the chemical change it brought about between two -substances; even such substances as were the Doyen, gods of space. - -Kael opened his eyes. - -He lay on a floor in the wreckage of the guardroom in the palace of -Akkalan. In the distance, but growing closer, he heard the faint -strumming of harpstrings. He lay there and listened to the harp, as -life flowed stronger into his body. - -The strumming came nearer. - -The McCanahan stood up and he waited, big and brown, marked with scars. - -Flaith stood in the broken doorway, her fingers falling from the harp. -Tears had formed twin channels from her red-lashed eyes along her -cheeks. When she saw Kael, she did not know him. And then he grinned, -and his long hair and scarred brown body were forgotten. - -She flung herself at him, and lay against him, trembling. - -He told her of the High Mor and what he had been, and of how the Doyen -had destroyed him. "We've won, Flaith. He's dead, forever. With the -harp--and the vibrators that we'll build to duplicate its pitch--the -Solar Combine will move on Sfar. Smash it, and its robot life!" - -Laughter bubbled in her throat as she looked up at him. "They'll reward -you, Kael. Make you somebody big on Terra!" - -The McCanahan grinned and hugged her. - -"An admiral at least! How would you like to be wed to an admiral, -Flaith mavourneen?" - -Her answer rocked him, in the hunger of her mouth on his. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WARLOCK OF SHARRADOR *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following -the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use -of the Project Gutenberg trademark. 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Fox</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Warlock Of Sharrador</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Gardner F. Fox</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: March 05, 2021 [eBook #64711]</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net</div> - -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WARLOCK OF SHARRADOR ***</div> - -<div class="figcenter x-ebookmaker-drop"> - <img src="images/illusc.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> -<h1>The Warlock of Sharrador</h1> - -<h2>By GARDNER F. FOX</h2> - -<p><i>For unremembered eons the Thing had slept. For<br /> -a million years it had quested through the star<br /> -worlds of its dreams, until it lived only as a<br /> -faint legend in the race memories of mankind. But<br /> -now the time had come for man to recall its name,<br /> -and to worship it once again. Noorlythin arose<br /> -and went out into the world of men and robots.</i></p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Planet Stories March 1953.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>The McCanahan came awake in the pearl mists of a Senn dawn, staring -upward into the round blue muzzle of a Thorn blaster. The handgun -hung in the air without visible support, its trigger moving slowly -back. In an instant, it would lash out at him with a thousand tares of -destruction.</p> - -<p>He whipped the bedclothes into a geyser of silk and moonylon, and dove -naked over the edge of the bed to roll on the floor and turn over and -over. He brought up against the chair where his uniform belt hung, and -fumbled blindly for his service holster.</p> - -<p>The blaster spoke in a soft whooosh of yellow flame, and the bedclothes -puffed once, billowing into a thick, reddish smoke. <i>That would have -been me, instead of the blankets, if the Little People had not come in -my dreams to whisper in my ears of Flaith's loveliness</i>, the McCanahan -thought, and tore loose his addy-gun.</p> - -<p>His wrist steadied, and he touched the stud. The blaster, hung on a -tensor beam, went red, then white, and began to melt in droplets all -over the thick Morrvan carpet of his officer's quarters. The tensor -beam, held by a minute mechanism inbuilt within the handgun's butt, let -loose, and the blistered, melting thing thudded to the floor.</p> - -<p>"It was a close thing," Kael McCanahan told himself, sitting there -naked on the floor.</p> - -<p>It had been the sfarri who had sent the gun. The sfarri, who hated the -men of Terra with a hate like a fierce, blazing flame, who would not -scruple at assassination to gain their aims.</p> - -<p>They were a cold, efficient breed of men, these sfarri. The farflung -Galactic fleet ships of Mother Terra, stretched in a thin line between -the stars, had crossed addy beams and searirays with their slim vessels -a thousand times. Almost always, Terra lost her ships. Almost always, -those far-ranging sfarran ships smashed the eagle-blazoned Terran -cruisers, and fled like laughing ghosts into the black infinity of -space.</p> - -<p>No Terran ship had ever captured a living sfarran. Somehow, with the -barbaric philosophy of hara-kari, they committed suicide. It never -failed.</p> - -<p>And slowly, but remorselessly, the ships of Terra and the Solar Combine -were pushed back and back, away from the Rim planets and the close -vastness of the Sack worlds that were so rich in every mineral, jewel -and foodstuff known to man, and even in some that Terran man had never -known.</p> - -<p>The Solar Command had ordered Kael's father, Sire Patric McCanahan, -Fleet Admiral, with Captain Raoul Edmunds and Commodore Kael McCanahan, -to Senorech, there to make at last parlay with the High Mor who ruled -the Senn. They were to offer alliances and trade agreements.</p> - -<p>Too many times, at the foot of the great ruboid throne of the Senn -ruler, had young Kael McCanahan seen the thin, hard lips of the High -Mor twist cruelly as he lashed out at the gray-haired Admiral. Too many -times had the red flush of fury crept up past his tight white uniform -collar with its crimson Commodore braid encrusted thick on its rich -surface, as he listened to the High Mor explaining to his father the -fact that the men of the Solar Command were no match for the relentless -fury of the sfarri.</p> - -<p>The High Mor, it was plain, was eager to ally himself with the sfarri.</p> - -<p>In return, the sfarri would rid him of these annoying Terrans.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The Thorn blaster that lay melting on the thick pile of his officer's -quarters was the opening shot in the extermination program.</p> - -<p>The McCanahan let the breath from his lungs in a sudden relief. He sat -with his back propped against the leg of the chair, and the hand that -held his own Thorn shook so that he put his wrist on his naked knee. He -was a tall man, a man grown hard and fit with the mechanical fitness -that was the hallmark of all officers of the Solar Intergalactic -Command. Blond hair was cropped close to the conformations of his head, -giving his face a hard, carven look.</p> - -<p>The mark of deep space was in Kael McCanahan's eyes, and in the catlike -walk and movements of his big body. He had been processed as only -Spacefleet officers were processed, in these days of the Empire, with a -cold precision to his mind and a careful hardness to his body.</p> - -<p>He came off the floor and began to dress, sliding into the white -uniform with its crimson facings, pushing feet into highly polished jet -boots. His mind went to his father, the Sire Patric McCanahan, who was -Earth representative at the court of the High Mor, overlord of Senorech.</p> - -<p>"If they've made their try for me, they've already made it for him," he -told the room.</p> - -<p>He buttoned his white jacket that had the golden eagles at collar -and cuffs. He whipped the leather service belt around his middle. He -fastened the black blaster holster to its pivot.</p> - -<p>The door opened to a fingerpress, and he was out in the long, metaloid -hall, moving with long strides. A woman came out of the shadows to meet -him, running.</p> - -<p>"Kael! Kael—wait!"</p> - -<p>It was Cassy Garson, in her white nursing uniform that was always a -little too tight for her curved body. Like many other Earth officers on -the distant planets of the empire, the McCanahan had fond memories of -the Nursing Auxiliary of the Fleet. Cassy Garson had been a lot of fun, -on a dance floor or under the curved canopy of a canalboat, or on the -silken cushions of a reflexifloor.</p> - -<p>Her soft hands caught his, and he could feel her body's tremblings -as she came against him. "Kael, you've heard! Oh, Kael, I'm scared! -What'll they do to us?"</p> - -<p>"Talk sense, Cassy!" he snapped, knowing his nerves frayed and jumpy -because of the metal thing he had melted in his room. He softened his -voice, and told her of it.</p> - -<p>Her dark eyes were frightened things. "They killed your father tonight! -The same way, probably. A Thorn blaster was found a foot from his -gloved hand. It looks like suicide. The High Mor has sent word that -we're to leave. All of us. No more Earthers on Senorech!"</p> - -<p>Cassy whispered in the stillness of the corridor, "We've orders to be -aboard the <i>Eclipse</i> by noon. To chart our course for Antares. To get -out of the Rim planets and stay out."</p> - -<p>The McCanahan drew a deep breath. His tight collar choked him, and a -vein swelled and throbbed in his hard face. "He's afraid of the sfarri. -Sfar is close to the High Mor's home galaxy. May the gods curse a man -so driven by fear he'd murder a man who wished him nothing but good!"</p> - -<p>Cassy shook against him. "Kael, let's rouse the others! We've got to be -on the <i>Eclipse</i> by noon!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>There was nothing he could do now, nothing except swallow the bitter -truth that he was running from a fight, that he was leaving his dead -father on an alien planet with not even a shamrock to blow in the -breeze above his grave. His father, one of the Bloody McCanahans, who -had scratched their names on graves from Mars to Makron, who had been -born to the service of the golden eagles, and now lay with no man to -whisper a prayer over his dead body.</p> - -<p>McCanahan shook himself like a cat stretching after a sleep. The anger -boiled within him, locked inside his guts by his tight lips. "I'm going -to get his body, Cassy. I'll take it back with us for decent burial."</p> - -<p>Her hands tightened until the red nails cut into his flesh. "You're -a fool, Kael McCanahan! A stubborn fool that's walking to his death! -Don't you understand? That's just what the High Mor wants you to do! -He'll have his dragon killers waiting for you, like cats standing at a -mouse-hole in the kitchen flooring!"</p> - -<p>"Let them wait," he growled, but her hand dragged him along the -corridor, to door after door of the fleet barracks. They roused the -honor guard, eighty men in all, the most allowed on Senorech by the -High Mor. Men tumbled from their bunks with sleep glazing their eyes, -but they wakened fast enough, with Cassy and the McCanahan to whip them -into action.</p> - -<p>They found Captain Edmunds of the <i>Eclipse</i> half dressed. A small, -chunky man, he showed the years of his service in the crowsfeet at the -corners of his eyes and the faint silver that threaded his curly black -hair.</p> - -<p>"I'm sorry, Kael. You're The McCanahan now, but that doesn't mean a -thing, not after what's happened. Get aboard the ship. I'll bring the -men, and whatever they want to take along."</p> - -<p>Cassy said, "I've alerted the nurses. They'll be ready at blast-off -time."</p> - -<p>Within an hour, it was done. Sober men in white uniforms were filing -out of their quarters by twos and threes, with their warbags slung -over shoulders or hanging by leather thongs from their wrists. They -moved across the city in a body, nurses in their center, their hands -wrapped on the walnut butts of their service blasters.</p> - -<p>McCanahan lost himself five minutes before Captain Edmunds took -them out of barracks, toward the silver bullet that was the S.I.C. -<i>Eclipse</i>. He stepped from Cassy Garson's side, into an intersecting -corridor, and moved down a flight of steps to the basement. It was -easy, down here among the great heating tubes and dynamos, to stand and -wait until the bootfalls faded. Cassy came once to a ramp, and called, -but her voice echoed hollowly in the cellar unanswered.</p> - -<p>Twenty minutes after they were gone across the city, McCanahan was -sliding through the shadows cast by the monolithic buildings, and -moving along the broad avenue flanking the Jaddarak canal. Ahead of him -were the white bulks of the government buildings. Somewhere in those -towering multi-windowed edifices, his father lay dead, with a Thorn -blaster close to his hand.</p> - -<p>He reached the high stone wall of the gardens and was hoisting himself -over the red and stone walltop when a dark-faced Senn caught sight -of his Earther uniform and screeched the alarm. The McCanahan cursed -in his throat and dropped to the ground inside the garden, his jet -boots printing their soles deep in the soft loam of a bed of Thallan -sunflowers.</p> - -<p>He made for the arched doorway at the near end of the gardens. At a -run he came into the darkness of the groined arches. He knew his way -through these labyrinthine tunnels. With his father, he liked to walk -in the cool corridors where the manacled takkaprots screeched their -birdlike songs and the colored waters of the fountains made a rainbow -of moving brilliance.</p> - -<p>The hoarse, brazen pitch of the bry-horns were startling in the -Senorech morning. <i>They'll be roaming these halls with their blasters -cutting at every shadow</i>, he thought. <i>Sooner or later one of the -shadows they shoot at will be mine!</i> He had to reach his father's -suite, had to kneel there and do what must be done for Patric -McCanahan, as Patric had done to his own father before him.</p> - -<p>They might expect him to come as he was, expect him to fight his way to -his father's side and kneel to whisper a prayer for him over his dead -body. On Earth it would be expected. Expected and guarded against. But -Senorech was not Earth, and on Senorech things were rarely done for -emotional reasons. The McCanahan yanked his Thorn from its sheath as he -slid into a telepetor and twirled a dial. If they were expecting him he -was ready.</p> - -<p>Curiously, the suite of rooms was empty, save for the crumpled man -who lay in a white uniform with gold and platinum aigrettes on the -shoulders, and red tykkan braid looped under a crumpled arm. McCanahan -went to his knees, and his lips moved. In the custom of spacemen -everywhere, from the domed tunnels of the Moon to the hellcraters of -humid Brinth, he put his hand to his father's wrist and whispered, "I -swear by the blood that bonds us, you will not have died in vain. I -will make the report, and investigate the reason for your dying."</p> - -<p>It was a simple thing, that oath. Many men had spoken it, until it -had become a part of the creed of those who roamed the star world. It -prevented tragedies, and saved lives, for once the reason for a man's -death was known, preventive precautions were taken, so that many men -who otherwise would have died, lived to walk the palm terraces of Mars -and sail the tossing seas of Achernar. The histories of space featured -and explained it, and glamorized its usefulness.</p> - -<p>But as the McCanahan let the words trail from his lips, he cursed and -looked down at his palm, where part of his father's wrist had come off, -to stick to it.</p> - -<p>He grimaced, and then reason came into his head. His father was -recently dead, no rotting corpse. "Plastiskin," he breathed, and leaned -down, ripping with strong fingers at that wrist, carefully built up to -hide something.</p> - -<p>Around his father's wrist was wrapped a length of silvery wire, thin -and fine. The McCanahan leaned forward and untwisted it.</p> - -<p>It came away and danced in his fingers, reflecting the blue glow of -the wall mercuri-lamps.</p> - -<p>"A harpstring!"</p> - -<p>He sat on his ankles and forgot that a mile away the <i>Eclipse</i> was -warming its take-off tubes. "Now why in the name of Brian Born did -father hide such a thing on his wrist? He played no harp, nor anything -else that ever made music!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>But this was no time to solve puzzles. With a snap of his fingers, he -rolled up the silvery wire and bound it tight about an ankle, then -thrust his foot back into his service boot. He went to the window and -stared down at the splashing fountains and the sunflower gardens half a -mile below him. The walls were lined with Senn guards, inside and out, -and men with the High Mor's red dragon insignia on their cloaks moved -here and there in the shrubbery, slashing at ferns and jungle vines -with their swords.</p> - -<p>"They'll tire of that soon enough," he decided. "Then they'll come -through the palace itself, a floor at a time, working the place over -with the point of a dagger and the muzzle of a Thorn."</p> - -<p>They would be expecting him to hide. They would be expecting him to -keep retreating ahead of them until they trapped him high above, in a -cloud-room or on a rooftop. A Senn or a sfarran would act like that. -They would do the smart, the sensible thing.</p> - -<p>"Faith, my belly tells me it's the smart thing for myself as well," the -McCanahan muttered. "But my head tells me something else again."</p> - -<p>He wandered the rooms of the palace until he found the wallgrille of -an atmosphere tube. With the edge of his service knife, he worked at -the screws until the plate came loose from the wall. He crawled into -the tube and replaced the grate as best he could. Then, sliding and -levering himself from curve to curve of the tube, he began moving -downwards.</p> - -<p>When he came to gentle loops in the tubes, he let go and slid. It took -him three hours to get down, but when he came into the cold metal coils -that could duplicate the atmosphere of fifty planets, he was below the -search level, and as good as a free man walking the streets.</p> - -<p>"Except for the uniform," he told himself, glancing down ruefully at -the white and gold resplendence of his fleet garb.</p> - -<p>In ten minutes he was crawling up through a street grille, and heading -for the space docks.</p> - -<p>He was moving up the Avenue of Emblems, with the gleaming bullet that -was the S.I.C. <i>Eclipse</i> towering above the buildings, nosing its point -skyward, still half a mile ahead of him, when he heard the announcers. -The words were just sounds, at first, like the pennons flapping above -his head from the tall poles, each a gift of the United Worlds.</p> - -<p>His mind was torn cleanly with a thin, hard grief, for he was -remembering his father, and the way of his smiling and his gentle -voice, and the fun they had shared together on the Klisskahaenay Rapids -in a boat, or in the crisp darkness of space, with the stars beckoning -and his father pointing them out to him. And his handclasp when he left -for the Academy, his letters, his visits at holidays when the needs of -the Empire were relaxed enough to free the Admiral from his cruiser. It -was a good companionship, that of his father and himself, born of their -mutual need when his mother died on Aldebaran.</p> - -<p>And now it was over. No more would he see that smile or listen to that -voice or wonder how it was that his father knew so much more than he -about so many things. They would never hook a lyskansa-fish or blast -a Martian boar with needleguns. They would never find new foods in -restaurants that—</p> - -<p>"—under penalty of the red dragon! Repeating! Space Commodore -McCanahan—Kael McCanahan, Earther—is to die on sight. All guards are -hereby warned. McCanahan must not leave Akkalan. He is to be shot on -sight, under penalty of the red dragon! Repeating...."</p> - -<p>It sank in after a while. He drew back into the shadows, and the -harpstring tied to his ankle pained him, as if it whispered with his -father's voice. <i>They're afraid of me and what I can do to them</i>, -his mind told him. <i>They don't even dare let me get close to a -spacommunicator panel!</i> But why? Why? The McCanahan shook his head -and looked down at himself, neat and trim in the gold and white space -uniform.</p> - -<p>"<i>It's a card with my name on it asking that they shoot me</i>," he -told the shadows. "<i>I've got to be rid of it or swallow a dozen -blaster-beams.</i>"</p> - -<p>They would be searching the space docks just about now, minutes before -take-off time. They would almost dismantle the ship to find him. And -there would be others, blasters in their hands, stretched all around -the field. They would shoot on sight, to kill, or they would suffer -the fate of the red dragon; and no one in his right mind cared even to -think about that punishment, that took a man a month of agony to die.</p> - -<p>McCanahan stripped naked in the shadows and bundled his uniform into -a ball and weighed it with his boots. He made a compact bundle and -threw it up, through the lengthening shadows, onto a low, sloping roof. -Let them find that when they could! Then he turned and ran on the -sun-warmed bricks, away from the field, toward the dirty alleyways that -were the Akkalan slums.</p> - -<p>"Now where in the name of the family leprechaun could a man who is -stripped to his buff hope to find a shelter in this unholy town?" he -asked the wind as he ran.</p> - -<p>McCanahan thought of Ars Maasen, a little dark man with a colossal -thirst for the pale yellow fire that was Senn wine. His lips twitched -as his memory ran on the nights they had spent together in the low-land -taverns, sampling every liquid that the skills and arts of men could -brew. Ars Maasen traded in lyss furs, and spent his profits faster than -the fierce little desert tycats could breed and run to his traps.</p> - -<p>With Ars Maasen he would find Flaith.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">II</p> - -<p>The cities of the Senorech had been built half a million years ago when -their primates first modelled clay from mud and water. As the years -piled knowledge on their shoulders, their buildings grew and expanded, -but they still showed the heterogeneous planning the first Senn had -put into them. A man could lose himself in the slum quarter, where -the dragon police rarely came, for the High Mor was content to close -his eyes to the manner of a man's profit, providing he paid a good -tax at the end of the year. Under the creaking signs and iron grille -balconies, in the dark street shadows, even a naked man could run free -and unmolested.</p> - -<p>He came to a square of light and an open door under a carven tycat. -Carefully he crept closer listening to the song a hundred throats were -bellowing through the smoke and the wine fumes. He came inside on -soundless feet and stood sheltered by a solid oak railing.</p> - -<p>Flaith was a breath in a man's throat and a catch at his guts, lovely -in bronze moire, her amber shoulders bared to the curve of her breasts, -the moire slashed teasingly down a naked side to the swell of a white -hip. She leaned on the wooden tabletop, and her slant eyes were clear, -and her crimson hair a flame caught in the blaze of a wall torch.</p> - -<p>The McCanahan let his eyes linger on her loveliness, but it was the -little dark man, with the scar across half his face and a full foaming -tankard at his mouth, that he had come to see.</p> - -<p>He drew back his arm and threw the pebble he held.</p> - -<p>Ars Maasen felt the sting of the rock on his forehead. He lowered his -mug and swore by a dozen gods at the ill manners of men who would toss -rocks in the middle of such a song. And then he felt Flaith's white -fingers, and the dig of her long red nails in his forearm.</p> - -<p>"It's Kael!" she whispered. "He's naked and alone!"</p> - -<p>"For shame! A fine boy like that and—"</p> - -<p>"Hssst, you byblow fool!" she warned. "Go to him and see what he needs!"</p> - -<p>She pressed the key to her dressing room into his hand, and when he had -slipped through the men and women toward the door, she stood so the -others could see her. On tiny golden feet she climbed from chair to -tabletop, and her bare arms were amber serpents writhing in the crimson -half-light.</p> - -<p>"The Snakes of Slaamsheel," she called to the players, and a roar of -delight went up, for this was an old ballad, and the flame-like Flaith -dancing with skirt to mid-thighs across the tabletops, set the blood -bubbling in a man's veins.</p> - -<p>The McCanahan caught the fire of her throaty singing just as Ars -Maasen whipped the cloak off his shoulders and flung it about his chest.</p> - -<p>"A full belly, is it?" the dark little man asked. "Wine or Puban ale or -maybe both?"</p> - -<p>"I'm sober as the snakes Flaith sings of, and as mean!"</p> - -<p>Ars Maasen caught the madness in his voice, and grunted, "Come quickly, -then. This way, across the sill and through the alley to her doorway!"</p> - -<p>When they were moving into the shadows of the alley, Kael told him of -his father's death, and of the orders of the High Mor that made him -lower than a Tuuran-peddler. And as the words came through his teeth, -the raw fury that twisted him showed in his eyes. "They blasted him -without a chance for a fight—the way they tried to blast me! Now -they're hunting me for a reason only the Shee fairies could know!"</p> - -<p>"Easy, boy. Easy! Talk as you want—it helps ease the pain under your -navel. But don't let the hate shake you so. It blinds a man."</p> - -<p>The little trader turned the key in the lock and the stout wooden door -opened inward to a tiny room where an oil lamp cast a dim yellow glare -on a dressing table and stool. Costumes hung from a peg-rack on the -wall above a tycat-skin couch.</p> - -<p>"Flaith's room," he muttered. "Only she comes here."</p> - -<p>The McCanahan sat on the couch, and with elbows on knees he looked at -the floor and began to swear. He cursed in low Martian, and in fluent -English, in high Centauran and sibilant Antaranese. "May the foul -fiends of Mars' ten hells gnaw his belly! May the imps of Iseen claw -his eyes from now 'til Doomsday! If only Hobgob himself were alive, and -here to fly away over Cureeng with his mean little soul!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Ars Maasen chuckled, and Kael McCanahan bit down on his tongue and -glared hard at him. The little man moved to the dressing table and -lifted a golden carafe. He went to pour the fiery liquid it held, then -turned to glance at the McCanahan. He shook his head and went across -the room and gave him the carafe.</p> - -<p>"There are times when a man can't quench a thirst, no matter how much -he drinks. Take it all."</p> - -<p>Kael tilted the carafe and let the smokey quistl slide into his mouth. -After a long while he tossed the carafe aside, and drew air into his -lungs. He came to his feet and walked up and down.</p> - -<p>"I'll need clothes. Some sort of disguise. I can talk their language -well enough. I'll make out until the heat ebbs away and I can come back -for him. The High Mor! A god and a priest to a god to these heathen -Senn! But he's a man, and man can die, slowly and in great pain, when -he's hated!"</p> - -<p>Ars shook his head. "Go away, yes. But forget this vengeance for a long -time. Maybe forever. You'll live longer that way."</p> - -<p>Kael put out his hand and lifted the dark man off the floor and shook -him. "He murdered my father! Burned him while he slept, with a Thorn -blaster on a tensor beam! No way to strike back! No chance to fight for -the life he loved!"</p> - -<p>He put the little man down and patted his arm. Ars rubbed his chest -where his jerkin had pinched his flesh. "You're a strong man, Kael -McCanahan. But not strong enough to buck the High Mor on Senorech! I -tell you—"</p> - -<p>The door came open and Flaith slid in, away from the reek of winey air -and the sound of roaring voices. She closed and locked the door and set -her back to it.</p> - -<p>She was a woman to stir the pulse of a man, in her bronze gown with its -slits and deep neck, and the tight fit of its cloth to the swell of her -haunches. Her slant eyes with the long curving lashes, the red fullness -of a moist mouth and the smooth forehead low under the flaming hair had -made her the darling of the quarter. She looked at Kael with her anger -bright in her green eyes, and her lips thinned to a tense line.</p> - -<p>"Before you speak, Flaith," said Ars Maasen suddenly, "let me tell you -he isn't drunk, except with hate for the men that killed his father."</p> - -<p>When Ars was done with the story she was in front of Kael whispering -softly, "Kael, forgive me! A woman can be a fool! I was one just now, -with the thoughts I had of you."</p> - -<p>"It doesn't matter. Nothing matters any more except the man I'm going -to kill some day! They won't let me leave on the <i>Eclipse</i>. They're -going to keep me here and hunt me down. And I don't know why!"</p> - -<p>Flaith whirled and went to her dressing table. She fumbled at a jar, -lifting the lid and dipping her fingers into jet cream. She said, "I'll -change the look of your face, Kael honey. Wipe away its hardness and -its pain. And somewhere here in all these clothes will be something to -fit you. Ars, look among them!"</p> - -<p>For an hour the McCanahan sat while they worked on him, and when the -hour was done, he stared at himself in the mirror and swore by the eye -of Balor himself that no man on all Senorech would know him.</p> - -<p>"You're as big and as strong," Ars grinned, studying him. "But you look -like a traveling singer, with those short curls and the shadows under -your eyes. A man who sings to a woman and loves her, and runs with the -dawn!"</p> - -<p>Kael snorted, but Flaith nodded.</p> - -<p>"A singer or a player of music. Can you use those fingers to coax a -tune from anything but a pretty girl?"</p> - -<p>Kael laughed. "And what would a man whose family came from Galway be -playing? I remember a night I sang of love to a woman on a balcony over -the canals of Shar Lir before I put the harp aside and coaxed music -from her flesh."</p> - -<p>Flaith flushed and scowled, then bubbled laughter.</p> - -<p>"You used a harp, that night, you faithless rheenog! A harp that I -bought and put aside with my tears, like a moonstruck schoolgirl!"</p> - -<p>She fumbled in a chest and drew it out. The lamplight caught its thirty -strings and made them glitter. Her fingers stroked it, and her eyes -were tender as she lifted them to his face.</p> - -<p>Flaith shrugged her shoulders. "I'm crazy. I'm moonstruck and as mad as -the ghouls that haunt the rim of Braloom! But—I'm going with you!"</p> - -<p>And when Kael would have argued, she put her fingers across his lips -and shoved him toward the door.</p> - -<p>"Wait outside! Neither you nor Ars nor any man we meet will know Flaith -for the shameless little gypsy she's going to turn into! Do you think I -want those fingers coaxing music from that harp for anybody but me?"</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">III</p> - -<p>The old rock road from Akkalan to the cities of the Inland Seas is -long and broken. Deserts spin their sandy webs across the shards of -its ancient cobblestones. Gaunt black ruins of forgotten cities can be -glimpsed dimly in the fading sunset, at the foot of the Samarinthine -Hills, or standing atop the stone slabs that mark the caravan routes -from Pint to Kanadar. Few used the old stone road, and the few who did -travel it were so wrapped in their own cares—for this was a road much -frequented by criminals and their like—they had no thought for the man -and woman who sat by the edge of a running stream, twenty feet from the -crumbled side of the highway.</p> - -<p>Kael's long fingers swept the taut strings of the silver harp, and a -burst of clear sound came flowing forth in a wild, free call. And then -the sound was softening, deepening, and in it was something of the peat -bogs of Iar Connacht, and something of the chill wind that sweeps the -Finnihy from Kenmare to Killarney. A soul wept bitterly in the strings' -twanging, with the tears of Deirdre staining its cheeks, and the -terrors of Strongbow's son clutching its middle.</p> - -<p>"Ai, to be like Ossian, with the power to move men to laughter or to -tears with the playing of his fingers on the strings," he whispered to -Flaith, where she lay with her chin pillowed on a white fist, staring -at him. "But a man does what he can with what he must, and I'm not one -for blaming the tool in my hand. It's a good harp."</p> - -<p>"It was made by Brith Tsinan," Flaith told him dryly.</p> - -<p>The McCanahan opened his eyes at that, and held the harp so as to -admire its fluted curve and ornate column. He touched the strings again -and they wept at the deftness of his touch. He moved them again and -made them laugh.</p> - -<p>Flaith wriggled her naked toes to the lilting rhythms he drew from -the strings. Across the star lanes and the paths of distant planets, -men and women had carried these tunes, and though they lay as dust in -their graves, something of their memories sat in Kael McCanahan's -fingers this day.</p> - -<p>He made the harp sing of Tara and the great hall of Cormac MacAirt, of -the baying hounds that ran in the hunts at Clonmell, and the cursing -stones of Monasteraden.</p> - -<p>The girl rolled on her back in the grass, and the worn cloth of her -blouse grew taut across her breasts. "Teach me words to put to those -songs, Kael McCanahan," she whispered, "and we'll eat well from the -coppers and silver bits we take in the marts like Clonn Fell and -Mishordeen."</p> - -<p>"Words? Songs? I don't know anything about those. Make up your own -words while I play to your ears and the sunlight, and the joy of being -alive!"</p> - -<p>And at the thought of life, he thought of death, and remembered his -father lying on the floor with a Thorn blaster close at hand, and -remembered Captain Edmunds and Cassy Garson and the rest who had lifted -from Senn in the S.I.C. <i>Eclipse</i>, and what had happened to them after -that!</p> - -<p>He stood suddenly. The scowl was black across his face as he lifted the -harp. He threw it from him roughly. Its strings screamed angrily as it -skidded across the ground.</p> - -<p>"I sit here and play music, and my father calls to me in whatever grave -they gave him! I ought to be thinking of finding the High Mor and -choking the life from his throat with these hands!"</p> - -<p>Flaith put her long fingers to her red hair and shook it free to the -breeze. Her slant eyes brooded at him as she remembered that day—weeks -back—when they had stood outside the walks of Akkalan watching the -destruction of the <i>Eclipse</i> under the cruiser beams of the High Mor's -space fleet.</p> - -<p>Kael had watched, sick and twisted. "That rotten mother's son ordered -her smashed! He couldn't find me, so he played it safe and killed them -all!"</p> - -<p>He went mad for a little while, and Flaith clung to him with sharp -nails digging into his arm and back, screaming in his ear. Only when -she buried her teeth in his neck and tasted blood did he come back to -sanity.</p> - -<p>Now, remembering all that, and knowing how the death of his father and -the destruction of the <i>Eclipse</i> ate in his middle with a sort of -sharp, acid bitterness, Flaith watched the McCanahan lift the harp from -where he had flung it. A silvern string was curled up, snapped by the -rocks across which it had skidded.</p> - -<p>"Now, how can we replace that?" Kael wondered. And then his fingers -were slipping off his boot and lifting loose the harpstring he had -taken from his dead father's wrist.</p> - -<p>"It isn't a d-note," he told Flaith, "but it will have to do. I'll not -touch it oftener than I must."</p> - -<p>He attached the string, and tested it with sweeping fingers. He -growled, "Only Ossian himself would know the difference."</p> - -<p>The McCanahan brooded less and less in the days that followed, and as -they moved along the road that bent in a wide arc about Drekkora and -beyond the snowtopped hills of Sharn, he slipped back into the Kael -McCanahan she had known in the taverns. Laughter came back to his -lips, and he turned more and more to the harp, coaxing magic from its -strings, that seemed to soothe his spirit.</p> - -<p>As he played, Flaith hummed with him, and words came to her lips, words -that matched the wild, clear music, and she sang these words to the -ancient melodies, and at last they came to Clonn Fell.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The stalls that lined the Square of the Balang were hung with priceless -tapestries from the looms of Beinoll and Drithdraga, and were bright -with the potteries of Lamanneen. Men and women of city house and desert -tent brushed through the stalls, fingering the wares, haggling over -prices, dipping into leather purses for stored coins. Many there were -whose fingers waved to the sounds that came from the big fountain in -the square where a tall man sat and played a silver harp.</p> - -<p>No man would have known the McCanahan in this brown stranger with the -naked chest gleaming through the rents of his worn, dusty jerkin, -with his loose cloth trousers fastened at naked ankles with metallic -cording. And no man would have known Flaith in the dark-skinned gypsy -wanton, with her midriff bare above her flapping skirt of transparent -teel and below the woven halter that bound her breasts. She was a -gamin who laughed and swayed her hips as she sang, and her eyes flashed -and flirted with the slack-jawed farmers in from fields and furrows.</p> - -<p>A sudden jostling took the farmers and the merchants as they listened -to the harpstrings. They made way sullenly for the file of sfarran -warriors who came shouldering a path arrogantly through the press. They -were tall, handsome men, their lean faces swart and dark. They looked -like fighting men, trim in black and gilt field uniforms. Their black -eyes moved everywhere, missing nothing.</p> - -<p>Now the sfarran detail was closer to the marble fountain where Kael sat -with Flaith huddled close against him. He could feel the shiver run -through her bare arm where it pressed his side.</p> - -<p>She whispered, "They look for us," and her dark eyes surveyed him, -studying his disguise. He could read the approval in them.</p> - -<p>The sfarri glanced at them and passed on.</p> - -<p>A man cursed softly from the shadows. There was a wild flurry of capes -and sandalled feet. A peddler, with a scraggly gray beard flowing -across his chest, ran like a frightened rat from a group of Kash -cattlemen and into a thick thong of rug merchants from Stig.</p> - -<p>"A rykinthus peddler," whispered Flaith.</p> - -<p>Kael felt the fury rise in him. The sfarri governed the people of this -planet as they might a herd of cattle. There was no emotion in the -chase. It was hunt and man down, capture him! Take him to the sfarri -tribunal, where an atomic disintor ray would blast him into thick white -powder.</p> - -<p>The peddler ran past Kael on shaking legs.</p> - -<p>In his darkest eyes Kael read the angry terror that lay deep within -him. Teeth gritted, Kael moved clumsily, bumping into the foremost of -the sfarri pursuers, throwing him off balance. Two others ran into him -and fell heavily to the cobblestones of the square.</p> - -<p>The sfarran officer rose, tight-lipped at this clumsiness. His hand -went to the holster of his addy-gun. Kael rammed a fist to his middle -and slid sideways, his harp still in his hand. With a backward lash of -his arm he drove the harp's heavy crown into his temple.</p> - -<p>The blow knocked the harp from his hand. He scrambled after it, where -it lay on the cobblestones. His fingers missed as he snatched at it -and swept across the strings. At the harsh, discordant sound that rose -into the air the sfarran officer who had been reaching for him fell -awkwardly to the stones, sprawling lifelessly.</p> - -<p>Other sfarri were falling too, as if the breath of life had been blown -from them. They lay here and there beside the fountain, like dead men.</p> - -<p>Kael stared dumbly, hearing the shouts of the people of Clonn Fell -falling back from the lifeless sfarri.</p> - -<p>Then he whirled and slipped in among the crowding merchants and -farmers, pretending that he was driven by stark terror.</p> - -<p>A moment of wild, flurried movement, and he was free, darting behind -a wooden wagon toward the heavy drapes of a carpet stall. Flaith was -shrinking back, also losing herself in the milling mob.</p> - -<p>Kael saw her, dove toward her.</p> - -<p>She cried out, "What was it? How'd you do it? What killed them?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know! We have no time to play guessing games!"</p> - -<p>He caught her hand, dragged her into an alleyway where the massive -stone walls of ancient buildings towered high above them. The dark -shadows they cast lay like shielding hands that shrouded them in sudden -darkness.</p> - -<p>Flaith panted, "You touched your harp! It made a sound! That must have -done it!"</p> - -<p>"I know all that! But for the sake of your unborn children, stop -talking and run!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>They went swiftly through the narrow streets, burdened only by the -silver harp. Under a stone archway, Kael swung to the right. A small -figure stood in the doorway, beckoning to them. It was the bearded -peddler Kael had saved from the sfarri.</p> - -<p>"This way," the peddler called. "Lunol forgets no man who saves him -from death!"</p> - -<p>An oak door opened. From it, a stone stair led down into a pit of -Stygian blackness. The peddler put a hand on Kael's belt, dragging him -down into the gloom. They went swiftly, toward a stream of water that -rushed and gurgled darkly between two narrow paths of brick that jutted -outward from the sheer rock walls.</p> - -<p>"The sewer system of Clonn Fell! Quickly, along the ledge! Gods be with -us! If the sfarri follow and clap their hands on us they'll throw us to -their torturers!"</p> - -<p>The peddler whimpered in his fear as he scurried along the narrow brick -ledge. Kael and Flaith ran after him. Soon their sandals were wet with -the accumulated filth and slime of centuries. They moved swiftly, with -the dim light of tiny bulbs, high in the domed ceiling, guiding their -feet.</p> - -<p>They went for miles through the sewer, deep down under the streets of -Clonn Fell.</p> - -<p>When they emerged into bright sunlight, they stood on a wide beach -where the gray, cold waters of the Taganian Sea rolled restlessly.</p> - -<p>Flaith sank on a rock, one hand pushing back her thick red hair. Kael -read her weariness in her haggard face.</p> - -<p>"Why were the sfarri after you?" he asked the peddler. "What did you -do?"</p> - -<p>Lunol shrugged. "I dwell in the Clith Korakam desert that stretches -from the ocean here to the cliffs of Kamm."</p> - -<p>Kael frowned his puzzlement.</p> - -<p>It was Flaith who explained. "The black tower of Balzel lies in -the Clith Korakam desert. It is a place forbidden to all people of -Senorech."</p> - -<p>The old man whimpered his fright. "I saw a man come out of that tower. -It was many months ago. He was a tall man with a bald head and scrawny, -withered arms. And yet there was something in the manner of his -walking, something in the way he held his head, that sent a cold chill -of terror down my spine!</p> - -<p>"Since then I have had dreams. Terrible, frightening dreams! Dreams -of places where no man has ever been! The sfarri have been hunting me -since then. It took them a long time to find me, but now—"</p> - -<p>Lunol shrugged. "From here it is not far to Clith Korakam. Once I am on -its sands no man will ever be able to find me! I've spent all my life -on those sands. I know them as I know the fingers of my hands."</p> - -<p>Kael looked at Flaith. "Sure, they'll be after us, too, now! They know -what we look like. They'll want us for helping this one get away."</p> - -<p>"What can we do?"</p> - -<p>The old peddler smiled. His swart face lighted under the loose cowl of -his kufiyah.</p> - -<p>"Come with me. I will make a home for you on the desert where none -shall ever find you."</p> - -<p>Flaith said, "Perhaps they won't know about us. We left the sfarri -lying like dead men, remember!"</p> - -<p>Lunol looked his interest.</p> - -<p>Kael said, "I touched my harp and the sfarri fell like poisoned -insects. Why they fell I do not know. Do you?"</p> - -<p>Lunol shrugged his shoulders. "I am an ignorant man. I do not know -about these things. But this I do know. If we do not go into the -desert, sooner or later the sfarri will find us!"</p> - -<p>They set off across the sands, past the high-humped rocks that were -beaten and weathered by the fierce storms that ravaged the planet. They -struggled across the burning wasteland, their throats choked with the -heat and the sand.</p> - -<p>The sun glowed down on them, making sweat run in tiny rivers that -plastered their robes to their flesh. The hours went by. Night came, -and they slept where they fell, exhausted.</p> - -<p>With the sun, they were up and moving. The days came and went, long -eternities of heat and thirst, through which they plodded in the -shifting sands. They were tiny motes of life against a backdrop of -level, desolate loneliness.</p> - -<p>They crossed ancient beds of rock, where once, in forgotten eons, a -sea had rolled. Here Kael had to lift and carry Flaith, for her thin -sandals were gone, and her white feet were red with blood where the -stones had cut them.</p> - -<p>They went on and on. They stopped at an oasis, here and there, to -quench their thirst in the cool waters of a subterranean spring. They -ate of the dried figs and bits of hard black bread that Lunol carried -in his girdle.</p> - -<p>Toward dusk of their sixth day on the desert, Lunol cried out. They -focussed eyes salt-encrusted with dried sweat where his finger pointed.</p> - -<p>"There! See yonder, and know Lunol did not lie!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>There was livid fear in the eyes of the old peddler as he gestured at -the glistening black pile of the tower lifting upward from the sand. It -was almost as if he expected to see something dark and fearsome slip -from the basalt blocks and come hunting him.</p> - -<p>"It's been there for thousands of years," he whimpered. "Even when the -balangs roamed these sands, the tower was there."</p> - -<p>Flaith came close to Kael. "I'm frightened! There's something wrong -with it."</p> - -<p>Kael snorted and walked forward through the sand, ploughing his way -where the wind had piled thick granules. Flaith ran a few steps after -him, her hand seeking his arm. Behind them, could hear the peddler -moaning.</p> - -<p>"I tell you," he chattered, "I've seen it come out of the tower on -clear nights when there wasn't a wind stirring across the sand. It just -moved around, all white and shining, making the sand lift and whirl, -like a storm down off the Barakian hills. It was cold. Terribly cold! -The sand was frozen solid where it had been."</p> - -<p>The McCanahan stared at the tower. It was tall, formed of black basalt, -a thick column of rock that was windowless and seemingly doorless. -At the base of the column was a long, low building that stretched on -either side of the tower for forty feet. Two red pylons, carved and -polished, stood like pointing fingers at its ends.</p> - -<p>The old peddler was wringing his hands. "It wasn't human, that thing. -It could kill as easy as a harlot winks! Once I saw a hare run past it. -It stretched out a thin wire of that cold white stuff and touched the -rabbit, and the rabbit died. I'm afraid!"</p> - -<p>Kael turned and caught the old peddler, yanking him to him.</p> - -<p>"You've bleated and brayed ever since we got out of Clonn Fell! Go back -if you want!"</p> - -<p>The old man's eyes glazed in his brown face. A wind stirred the wisps -of whitish hair that straggled from under his kufiyah, and the springs -of thin beard that fluttered on his chin. He seemed to shake himself, -and at an effort, his eyes cleared.</p> - -<p>"No! No! You saved me from the sfarri. I told you the tower was the -only place where the sfarri never came, on all of Senn. But to go to -the tower, to meet that thing—"</p> - -<p>The McCanahan let the old man go, gently. He was ashamed of the burst -of rage that had shaken him. He drew in a lungful of the hot desert -air. He was alone on Senn. His comrades in the <i>Eclipse</i> had been -destroyed. The High Mor was seeking him across a world, and to have -this peddler whimpering his fear in his ears was proving too much.</p> - -<p>He said gently, "Sorry, old one! Sooner or later the sfarri will come -here to the tower. After they have searched all Senn. They will find -us. Maybe inside that tower—"</p> - -<p>Lunol shivered. "No man can live inside the tower. No man can approach -it. Death strikes down all who try! I've seen too many animals run -close to it and—hofff!—they go up in smoke! There's a band of death -all around it. If you go too close, you'll be the one to turn into -smoke!"</p> - -<p>Kael McCanahan shrugged. "As well go up in smoke as die under a Thorn -blaster held in a sfarran hand!"</p> - -<p>He went on alone.</p> - -<p>Flaith whimpered, watching him. She crouched, her long-nailed fingers -digging into the soft flesh of a white thigh. Her eyes were wide, -frightened.</p> - -<p>He went twenty feet, then thirty. He grew smaller, walking across the -flat stretch of dunes toward the great black tower.</p> - -<p>As he walked, the McCanahan threw his blaster, fastened on a length of -rope, ahead of him. If some electrical force was probing, it would seek -out the metal of his addy-gun and shatter it.</p> - -<p>Nothing happened to the gun.</p> - -<p>He walked on and on.</p> - -<p>No death struck at him. Now he stood under the shadow of the great -gateway that was formed of a queer, sleek marble that held green fire -frozen beneath its glazed surface. He put a hand on the gate and pushed.</p> - -<p>To his surprise, the doorway opened, noiselessly.</p> - -<p>Kael moved under the arched gateway, into a region of dim light and -sharp black shadow, where a towering pile of glass and metal bulked -huge in the center of the hall.</p> - -<p>And then his legs crumbled beneath him, and Kael McCanahan went down, -onto the tiled yellow flooring of the tower room.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">IV</p> - -<p>He floated bodiless in space. The stars swirled about him, moving -endlessly in their orbits. This was death, he knew. But it was a -strange form of death, for here and there he could recognize familiar -constellations, saw nebulae and galaxies that he knew.</p> - -<p><i>This is not Noorlythin!</i></p> - -<p>The voice swirled about him, rumbling out of the black stretches of -space itself. The McCanahan could feel eyes on him, hidden eyes that -probed at him, lancing through him with the remorseless certainty of a -surgeon's electroniscalpel.</p> - -<p><i>This is a Terran. A man named McCanahan. He is frightened!</i></p> - -<p><i>He was within the tower. Only Noorlythin could live in that trap of -hell. I do not understand!</i></p> - -<p>Something touched him, as gently as a Spring breeze off the sea. And -with the touching, the eyes of Kael McCanahan came open to the robed -figures that floated between the stars. He tried to see their faces, -but only a blinding whiteness returned his stare, under the low hoods -of the robes.</p> - -<p><i>Seek not our faces, Terran. To you, we are as the sun!</i></p> - -<p>His tongue was thick and swollen. He mumbled. He swallowed, as if to -clear his throat.</p> - -<p>"Where am I? Who are you? I walked into the tower and—"</p> - -<p>What had happened to him on that yellow floor? His knees had buckled -and he had gone down with an intangible force crushing him. Kael shook -his head.</p> - -<p><i>We are the Doyen. An ancient race, a race of once-men who have lived -out the span of our lives a million centuries. In that time, we -changed. Our bodies evolved upward from their primal shape, striving -always to progress to that last, final shape of all.</i></p> - -<p>"Noorlythin? He is one of you?"</p> - -<p><i>Once he was. But Noorlythin could never forget the adoration that was -showered on us by the sfarri. He hungered to be worshipped as a god, -as once he was, many eons ago. Noorlythin turned his back to us, the -Doyen. He has gone back, resuming the primal shapes of the men whose -race is young.</i></p> - -<p>Fear came to McCanahan there among the stars. It crept in through the -unspoken words of the robed things, clutching at his mind with frozen -fingers. He shook uncontrollably before he could assert himself.</p> - -<p>"This Noorlythin. You seek him?"</p> - -<p><i>He has broken the Doyen law. He has become as an animal. With his -powers, he can be a god to any primal race. No primate can stand to -him, and well he knows it. When he is ready, when he has used the -sfarri to conquer all the primal races of the galaxy, he will ascend -into the living sacristy of the Temple of Sharrador. There, once again, -he will be worshipped with living sacrifices, with orgies that only a -primal race can conceive and execute.</i></p> - -<p>The McCanahan said, "You aren't telling me all this just to talk."</p> - -<p><i>You are a poor servant. Your flesh is weak. Yet must we use you -against Noorlythin!</i></p> - -<p>"How? How can I help?"</p> - -<p>And then all space was shaking, flowing in a liquid stream, inward -toward a whirlpool of light that swam around and around, sucking the -stars and the black deeps of space into its maw. And as the stars and -space flowed faster and faster, so flowed McCanahan stretched and -lengthened and tortured....</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He sat on the yellow tile of the ancient tower. A tumble of red hair -shifted and tossed before him as Flaith's white hand shook him. Beyond -her, near the open green marble door, stood the peddler. His eyes -burned with the fright in his face.</p> - -<p>"Kael! You were so still. I thought you dead!"</p> - -<p>She helped him to his feet. He swayed, almost retching with the pain -that spasmed his muscles. Flaith was a blur of white before him. He put -his hands to her soft shoulders, and his fingers dug in. He held to -her, as to reality.</p> - -<p>Slowly the floor solidified and steadied beneath his buskined feet. The -pain slid away, slowly, then with greater speed.</p> - -<p>"Out there," he said thickly. "Things. Bright things. Maybe made -of energy itself. They spoke to me. Told me about something named -Noorlythin. It was as if I was suspended in space itself. Want me to -help them."</p> - -<p>Flaith came against him until the hard tips of her breasts burned his -naked chest. Her voice was a flow of terrified sound.</p> - -<p>"The Doyen! They are the Doyen! We on Senn always thought they were -just a myth, like the balangs! They are gods, Kael! The gods of all -space!"</p> - -<p>The McCanahan grunted. "Well, gods or not, they want to make a servant -out of me. They want me to help them round up some character named -Noorlythin."</p> - -<p>From the doorway the peddler groaned. His eyes rolled in his head. A -white froth bubbled on his lips.</p> - -<p>"Noorlythin, the evil! Noorlythin, who lived in the olden days, when -all Senorech worshipped him with blood sacrifices. Even today, on the -altar in the Temple of Krebb, the dark stains are still there!"</p> - -<p>The McCanahan turned away to stare upward at the great metal machine -that bulked monstrous in the dim light. It was formed of black steel -and silvery chrome. Its tubes and power relays were inset under thin -glass globules so that it resembled a gigantic, transparent-backed -spider. High above its arching shell, reaching upward into the dimness -of the tower itself, were half a hundred floating, glowing balls that -danced and spun in the wind eddies.</p> - -<p>Stretching on either side of the central hall were wide corridors, -their walls lined by glass bubbles that projected outward like bulging -eyes.</p> - -<p>The McCanahan moved toward the near corridor, his eyes caught by a -scene within one of the glassine bubbles. Flaith followed him, afraid -to be alone.</p> - -<p>They halted before a curving prism, discovering it to be a dioramic -window that seemed to peer into the heart of a distant planet. Flaith -whispered, "It's the planet Sfar! I'd know those cold-faced men -anywhere!"</p> - -<p>Frozen, tiny faces stared back at them from a great, white city, set -like a jewel on the shore of a wide, blue sea. The little figures were -caught in a locked moment of time, attending to their duties. Some -moved with weapons, some drove sleek monocars.</p> - -<p>"There's something about them," Kael muttered, scowling. "They're so -perfect! They make every move count as if it would be their last. Each -of them is long and lean, with bright, keen eyes that never miss a -thing!"</p> - -<p>Flaith put a hand on the glassine bubble, leaning closer, staring down -at the magnified scene. "It's funny, but—"</p> - -<p>Her slant eyes slid sideways at the McCanahan, amusement swimming -in them. "I've noticed something that I thought <i>you'd</i> see, Kael -McCanahan!"</p> - -<p>His eyes studied the girl in front of him as she cocked her head at -him. Even in her tattered garments, through which the McCanahan caught -disturbing glimpse of white, rounded flesh, the redhaired Flaith was a -tantalizing morsel of womanhood. He put out a long arm and drew her in -against him.</p> - -<p>"Och, now what would I have been missing that you, with your cat's -eyes, have seen?"</p> - -<p>She shrugged elaborately. "If you haven't missed them, I won't tell—"</p> - -<p>"Shades of Bridget na Gablach! Their women!"</p> - -<p>"They have no women! No man of Senorech has ever seen a sfarran girl. -Rumor says that they shelter them because of their loveliness. But if -this a diorama of the sfarran planet, and there are no women, then—"</p> - -<p>Kael grunted. "You and your crazy theories! Look, woman! See for -yourself. There are women there. There must be women!"</p> - -<p>But though they hunted along all that corridor, staring at the -sfarran world and its divers shapes and colors, its desert storms and -wind-tossed seas, its magnificent white cities that looked like milky -jewels, they found no woman.</p> - -<p>For two hours they hunted, until the McCanahan discovered that by -moving a red lever he could make the scenes within the bubbles come -to life. The tiny men moved, as if released from a frozen tomb. They -walked and piloted their vessels, and went about their tasks. Yet even -so, no woman appeared.</p> - -<p>"It's some sort of televisic communicator," the McCanahan muttered, -"that's spacecasting across a billion billion miles of space."</p> - -<p>"They have no hospitals, either," said Flaith in a troubled voice.</p> - -<p>"Now what will you be meaning by that?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The redhead smiled wryly. "Even in this advanced day and age on -Senorech, Kael my darling, women still go to hospitals to have their -babies!"</p> - -<p>The McCanahan scowled. "And if there are no hospitals, they'll have -their brats at home, won't they?"</p> - -<p>"Brats, indeed!" flared Flaith, whirling, chin high.</p> - -<p>"Peace, peace," grinned Kael. "It's only teasing I was. But I begin to -see your drift, mavourneen. No women, no hospitals, no children. Then -the sfarri are not human. Or maybe it's because they're ovopoid. Maybe -they're sexless, like an amoeba, or maybe they fertilize themselves and -lay an egg to hatch a little sfarran."</p> - -<p>"There are no little sfarri. All are grown men. Every last one."</p> - -<p>McCanahan brooded with his lower lip thrust out. "No little ones. No -coibche to bind a man and a woman in holy matehood. No women, even, to -comfort a man when he's sad with loneliness. Then they aren't human, -with no heart in their chests to beat a little faster at the kiss from -a woman's lips. And if they have no hearts, they must be—</p> - -<p>"<i>Robots!</i>"</p> - -<p>The McCanahan walked in his excitement, taking long steps that drew -him past the metal machine with its glass-encased tubes and wirings. -"<i>Robots!</i> No wonder they're perfect! No wonder it is that none has -ever been caught by a Terran battle fleet for questioning! Being -robots, they destroy themselves before capture. And being robots, too, -they fight with the same mechanized, incredible fury that's smashed a -dozen war fleets between Achernar and Sol."</p> - -<p>The McCanahan was warming to his subject. "We fought the sfarri across -a score of galaxies, ever since my grandfather Rhoderick—bless his -memory!—first crossed atomic disintegration beams with their cruisers. -They've pushed us back, away from the Rim planets. Everywhere our -paths have met, there's been bloody war. Bloody? Ha! There's been no -blood spilled on their side. Just cogs and wheels and wire!"</p> - -<p>Flaith tossed back a lock of reddish gold hair from before her eyes. -"You killed them in Clonn Fell. You slew them when you touched your -harp strings! The sound did it."</p> - -<p>"The harp of Brith Tsinan. Aie! It had the silver string that I took -from my father's wrist attached to it. Do you remember how I broke the -other, when I threw the harp on the road from Akkalan? Where is the -harp, Flaith?"</p> - -<p>The old peddler came shuffling forward from the doorway, dropping his -shoulder to loosen the strap that held the black sack to his back. From -the sack the bright silver harp tumbled into the McCanahan's eager -fingers.</p> - -<p>He lifted the harp and set it to his shoulder. His hands played across -the strings, and the wild sharp peal of the strings swept up and -through the tower.</p> - -<p>In answer to the high, keening notes, a tube in the great metal machine -spanged shrilly. The tinkle of broken glass was loud in the sudden -silence as Kael dropped his fingers from the quivering harp strings.</p> - -<p>Lunol, the peddler, cried out harshly, his face a wet mass of sweating -fear. Flaith screamed high and shrill. Her bare arm lifted and pointed.</p> - -<p>The McCanahan whirled, and his harp fell from numb fingers.</p> - -<p>Bright and blazing, like the core of a giant sun, a whirling mass of -fiery matter whirled and quivered, pulsing before the great machine. -Its incandescence was blinding, brilliant. They could read the fury in -the flame of its sentient heart. They needed no voice to tell them.</p> - -<p><i>Noorlythin!</i></p> - -<p>The sunburst of brilliance lifted, shuddering. It foamed and grew, -incandescent in the sheer brilliance of the white fire that burst and -bloomed within it.</p> - -<p>A thin stream of fire reached out, touched Lunol and laved him in its -blinding whiteness.</p> - -<p>And Lunol shrank in upon himself, grew smaller, almost tiny within the -bubble of brilliance that held him. He grew, then. Expanded suddenly. -And where Lunol and the hungry white fire had been was just blackened -smoke, drifting across the yellow floor.</p> - -<p>Flaith turned her face in against Kael's chest. Her fingers bit their -nails convulsively into his flesh. Her body shook so badly that its -trembling moved the McCanahan as he stood on firmly planted legs.</p> - -<p>Another pencil of fire stabbed out.</p> - -<p>Stabbed out, and—</p> - -<p>Halted!</p> - -<p>In midair it halted, spreading across an invisible wall of nothingness -that was erected before the McCanahan and the girl he held.</p> - -<p>There was puzzlement in the pulsing of the thing, in the blind, angry -dartings of the pencil-beam of flame. It moved to the floor, and -quested upward to the ceiling. It darted from wall to wall, seeking to -penetrate the barrier that sheltered its victims.</p> - -<p>And now the amazement was gone. The white fire burned lower, as if -afraid.</p> - -<p>In sheer anger, that made it blaze so brightly that Kael cried out and -lifted a hand to hide his face, the thing stabbed again. And again, -hungrily, raging with insane fury.</p> - -<p><i>The Doyen shelter you! Only the Doyen could stand against the power of -my will!</i></p> - -<p>McCanahan could feel the anger fall away before the fear that ate at -the thing. Almost, he could hear its thoughts. Perhaps it wanted him to -hear his thoughts.</p> - -<p><i>They can save you for a little while. But they cannot shelter you -forever. Not from Noorlythin-the-Doyen can they save you forever! I -shall work my will on you yet, man of Terra! You will crawl on bloody -stumps for legs, waving handless arms for mercy! Begging me with -tongueless mouth for the boon of death!</i></p> - -<p>It came to McCanahan that the thing spoke out of the grip of its own, -paralysing terror. It mouthed threats to bolster its own esteem.</p> - -<p>Kael put his mind to the task and forced a laugh between his lips. He -made his laugh mocking, challenging.</p> - -<p>"You'll never kill me, Noorlythin! I am servant to the Doyen. Such as -the Doyen protect those whom they select to serve them!"</p> - -<p>The thing that was Noorlythin pulsated like a stream of cobwebs caught -in a mad wind. It lifted and shook, swirled and bellied.</p> - -<p>And then, suddenly, it was quiet. It hung a foot above the yellow tile, -barely moving. And the inertia of the thing was more frightening than -all its blinding brilliance.</p> - -<p><i>The Doyen play the game according to its rules. They will not let me -harm you with my Doyen powers. Only by other gifts can I let the life -from your body, Terran! So be it!</i></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">V</p> - -<p>And the thing was gone, blanking instantly from sight with nothing left -behind to show its presence but a bit of black dust stirring restlessly -on the tiling as a breeze came in off the desert and moved down the -long corridor.</p> - -<p>"Poor Lunol," whispered Flaith. "Oh, the poor old man!"</p> - -<p>The McCanahan lifted his harp and stared dumbly at its glittering -surface of polished silver. "The string from my father's wrist broke -the tube in the machine. It summoned up Noorlythin from—from wherever -he was hidden."</p> - -<p>"How can you use that knowledge?" wondered Flaith.</p> - -<p>Kael shook his head. "I don't know yet. But I will. Somehow, I'll find -out the truth." He lifted his head and peered about the great tower. -"And where better to begin than here?"</p> - -<p>They ate dried meat plucked from Flaith's girdle-pouch, chewing on -hard black bread. And then they slept, with Flaith cuddled against the -McCanahan's length, with his own head pillowed on an arm, both of them -stretched at the foot of the great metal machine.</p> - -<p>It was the McCanahan who stirred first, rising from the soft body of -the girl, carefully so as not to disturb her. He wandered about the -tower, studying the strange machines that glistened at him from the -shadows. A man would need a dozen lifetimes to understand these things, -he told himself. He would find no help from them.</p> - -<p>He tried to fight the pall of bitter despair that lay across his -shoulders. He was the servant of the gods of space, caught up by them -to hunt out and punish another god.</p> - -<p>Laughter touched his lips; but the bitterness in it stung like acid.</p> - -<p>How does one fight a god? How does one go about killing a thing that is -made only of white, radiant energy? A thing that by a mere touch of the -blazing brightness that comprises it, can blast him and all his kind to -a black dust that shifts restlessly across a floor, flung by an errant -breeze!</p> - -<p>His fists were clenched until the knotted muscles of his forearms -ached. "I can't do it," he told the machines. "I'm only a man. I can't -fight against a god!"</p> - -<p>Deep within him, he knew that someone had to make this fight, that -someone from one of the thousands of Terran worlds had to face -Noorlythin, had to stand to him and his awesome power, or the human -race itself would go down, crushed and torn and flung into nothingness, -as a sand castle went down before the relentless roll of the ocean.</p> - -<p>When that happened, the sfarri and the Senn would expand, would lift -their faery castles and their monstrous, monolithic palaces, where now -Terran buildings stood. And those of the Senn would have their pick of -the women of Earth.</p> - -<p>Of women like—</p> - -<p>Flaith!</p> - -<p>He turned to find her stretched on her back, her eyes regarding him -wistfully. A shred of her gypsy costume was caught over one shoulder, -falling away from the push of her nearly bared breasts. The thin stuff -at her waist hugged round hips and full upper thighs. The breath caught -in the McCanahan's throat as his eyes ran over her.</p> - -<p>She was a woman to steal the breath of a man from his lungs, and send -his senses running in a saraband. She was the dream of every lonely -spaceman at his battle station, of every thul-prospector hanging to a -wandering asteroid with fingers and a suction clamp. With her red hair -frothing over the witchery of her cream-skinned shoulders, she was -Deirdre herself, the perfect woman.</p> - -<p>Something of his tangled senses came to Flaith and she laughed, with -the throaty womanness of her pleased at the worship in his eyes.</p> - -<p>In the middle of her laughter, a shadow came and lay on the yellow -flooring between them.</p> - -<p>A sfarran officer stood tall and lean in the open doorway of the tower, -a glittering Thorn blaster in his right hand.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The officer regarded them coldly. It came to Kael as he stood dumbly -returning that hard glance, that he had never seen a sfarran smile.</p> - -<p>"You will come with me at once."</p> - -<p>He stood sideways to the green marble doors, giving them room to pass -him. Flaith scrambled to her feet; eyeing the gesture with which the -officer moved his blaster. The McCanahan bent and lifted his harp, and -thrust it into the black sack that had once belonged to dead Lunol the -peddler.</p> - -<p>Then he was walking with Flaith out the pylon gateway of the tower, -across the hot sands toward the black hull of a sleek sfarran cruiser.</p> - -<p>He was midway through the hatch when he paused, staring.</p> - -<p>There were sfarran men and officers inside the ship, but they were -slumped over queerly, in distorted postures and attitudes. He had seen -the sfarri like that in Clonn Fell, when he had plucked at the strings -of his harp. But here he had not struck those strings!</p> - -<p>Last night he had played for Flaith and Lunol. And when he had played, -a tube in the great, glistening tower machine had cracked into a -thousand different fragments.</p> - -<p>That breaking tube might have summoned up Noorlythin from whatever hell -he dwelt.</p> - -<p>"Move in, Earther," said the officer behind him.</p> - -<p>Kael went with Flaith, at the officer's orders, to an upholstered bench -set against a panelled wall. The officer brooded at them, and they -could read the raw hate that lay deep in his black eyes.</p> - -<p>The officer said, "You ought to be rayed down here, to save the High -Mor the agony of listening to your pleas for mercy. But yours is a -grave offense. An offense no man or woman has ever committed before. It -calls for grave punishment."</p> - -<p>Flaith's hand trembled in Kael's big fist.</p> - -<p>The officer said, "The High Mor commissioned me to bring you to him. -I would be derelict in my duty were I to do otherwise. And I, Captain -Herms Borkus, intend to commit no such infraction."</p> - -<p>The black eyes studied them. There was curiosity swimming in their -depths, mixed with the hot hate, and a grudging respect. He turned away -and went forward to the control chamber. Kael could hear the clicking -relays picking up the automatic transmission. The ship lifted easily, -its null-gravity humming with smooth insistence.</p> - -<p>Flaith whispered, "The harp, Kael. You'll kill him as you killed the -others!"</p> - -<p>But Kael only gestured at the sfarri that lay in the strange and -distorted attitudes, or sprawled on the floor. And even as he gestured, -the first of these dead sfarri stirred and sat up, looking about him. -Others moved then, silently, turning at once to their duty posts, -resuming their tasks as if they had never been interrupted.</p> - -<p>"Mother of balangs!" whispered Flaith, her eyes wide and troubled under -their long red lashes. "They live!"</p> - -<p>The McCanahan was half out of his seat, his mind questing. <i>They were -dead, but now they live. Like machines, turned off and on!</i> He thought -of the cracking tube in the black tower, and the sfarri that had fallen -in the square in Clonn Fell. Dimly, he began to grasp the power of the -harpstring that he had lifted from his father's wrist. It smashed the -tubes in the power-boxes that fed the sfarri their energy. Without that -power, they were idle machines.</p> - -<p>With the trained mind of the spacefleet officer, he saw the -possibilities of such harpstring, in the form of a vibrator that would -spacecast a flow of microwaves from the battle wagons of the fleet. -With a series of these vibrations fanning out ahead of them, Solar -Combine ships could more than hold their own with the sfarri. For at -the touch of those microwaves, the sfarri that ran their spaceships -would slump in their form of death.</p> - -<p>Bitter mockery rose inside the McCanahan as he sat hunched over. He -had the knowledge, but what use was it? He was being carried to an -extremely painful death in the damp dungeons of the High Mor's palace.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Herms Borkus came toward them from the control chamber. He stared from -one to the other. At last he said, "How did you do it? In Clonn Fell, -we found our officers and men lying as if dead. As this ship neared -the Tower of Noorlythin, my men slumped over unconscious."</p> - -<p>Kael shrugged. "I've a powerful evil eye, friend. I cast it at those I -don't like and—well, you saw the result."</p> - -<p>Borkus said coldly, "You talk foolishly. There is no such thing as the -evil eye. What is the answer?"</p> - -<p>"Oh, now look!" began Kael, when the thought struck him. <i>Borkus is a -sfarran, yet he did not succumb to the lack of power!</i> Kael turned the -words on his tongue, and said, "I was talking sense, captain. In my -family, as far back as the time of Niall of the Nine Hostages himself, -one of the McCanahans has always possessed the evil eye. It's a daft -thing, and I'm not understanding it myself, any too well, but it's the -only explanation I can give."</p> - -<p>Borkus looked at Flaith, but his eyes did not linger on her beauty, and -showed no more emotion than a dog would show staring at a building. -From Flaith, his eyes swung to Kael who could read the thought that was -gripping the officer. <i>He's wondering if he can strike at me through -her.</i> But that was the way of a man who lacked confidence in his own -abilities, and Kael knew that this man before him had powers he had not -yet used.</p> - -<p>The sfarran captain shrugged and moved away. He threw back over his -shoulder, "The High Mor will know how to deal with you. After all, it -is his duty, not mine."</p> - -<p>For five hours, Flaith and McCanahan huddled together on the -upholstered bench in the sfarran ship. With each passing moment, the -bleakness in the soul of the McCanahan grew darker and more empty.</p> - -<p>The ship landed on the palace grounds, shuddering slightly as it -dropped onto the metallic tanbark. A moment after its vanes were -clamped, Flaith and the McCanahan were crossing the landing field, -moving down a stone ramp that led to the dungeons.</p> - -<p>A burly man, with black hair matted over his naked chest, clanked a -ring of keys at their approach. He preceded them along the torchlit -corridor until he paused at an empty cell.</p> - -<p>The cell was unlocked, and the McCanahan thrust inside. And then a -sobbing Flaith was dragged away from him, in the grip of one of the -burly man's hairy paws.</p> - -<p>Kael McCanahan was a spaceman, and spacemen are generally, without -quite being aware of it, excellent philosophers. He tested the bars of -the cell, found them to be formed of Mollystil, and went over to the -cot, where he lay on his back, staring at the blank ceiling. Within -five minutes he was asleep.</p> - -<p>He woke to the touch of a soft hand on his chest, to find a woman bent -above him, her limpid brown eyes soft with pity. A tumble of yellow -hair framed her oval face.</p> - -<p>"I bring you food and drink, lord. You will need your strength for what -lies ahead."</p> - -<p>Kael laughed harshly. "Better to be weak and near death when the High -Mor begins his tortures."</p> - -<p>She moved closer. She was fragrant with some Senn perfume, and the -little she wore—a red silk thing twisted about her loins, with a -slavegirl's golden chains about her throat—showed her body to be -exquisite, even in the half-light of the cell. The McCanahan read the -pity in her eyes, and began to take interest.</p> - -<p>"Sometimes, those live the longest who have no false pride," she told -him.</p> - -<p>"You give me hope. Were you sent to do that?"</p> - -<p>There was reproach in her eyes, and she started to draw away. The -McCanahan caught her slim wrist and held her.</p> - -<p>"Who sent you with your tempting offers?"</p> - -<p>She pouted at him. "No man sent me. I am Slyss, the slave girl from -Aakkan." She rubbed her wrist when he released her, unconsciously -posing for his eyes.</p> - -<p>The McCanahan said, "Tell me more!"</p> - -<p>But she shrugged a white shoulder and went to stand by the cell bars -while he ate. When he was done, she took his tray and wooden bowl and -mug, and walked off with them, unlocking the cell door with a key that -hung from her wrist, attached to a thick metal manacle.</p> - -<p>Her hips wriggled as she went, and she threw a glance at him over her -shoulder. Her voice was music as she carolled a farewell.</p> - -<p>She left the McCanahan with a fever of impatience in him. He strode -back and forth in his cell. His hands tested the Mollystil bars a -hundred times. He told himself that the Senn did not love the sfarri -overmuch, that the Senn, being descended from animal ancestors, had no -common ground with a race of robot men. He asked himself where in this -pile of giant masonry Herms Borkus had hidden Flaith. If he could get -away, if he could use this yellow-haired slave girl to unbar these cell -doors for him, he would find Flaith and flee.</p> - -<p>Flee?</p> - -<p>Where on all Senorech was there sanctuary for Kael McCanahan?</p> - -<p>The slave girl told him when next she brought his food. This time, he -was awake and restless, and her soft, quick tread was like music to his -ears.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>She came close to him, with only the width of the little tray between -his chest and her breasts that stirred gently to her quickened -breathing. Her brown eyes were full of gentle pity as they studied his -haggard face and sunken eyes.</p> - -<p>"Lord, you were never meant for prison bars! If only you would trust -me, I know a way that leads from the palace."</p> - -<p>"Trust you, Slyss? I'd love you for a chance at freedom."</p> - -<p>Again she preened, smiling as he wolfed the food. "Only for that?"</p> - -<p>His eyes studied her. She was a lovely thing, slim and gently rounded. -Beside the flame-haired Flaith she was a cooling breeze, but he knew -many men who would have walked through the fires of Nanakar for an hour -in her arms.</p> - -<p>"Not only for that," he told her. "You're a sight to send a man's blood -to pounding in his veins. You don't look like a slave girl. You're much -too beautiful."</p> - -<p>Her laughter was soft, pleased. She came and sat beside him, so that -her hip and thigh were warm on his. She carried perfume in the yellow -hair that dripped on her shoulders. It was rare perfume, and the -McCanahan thought that if her mistress knew about it, that creamy back -would be striped with red whipwelts.</p> - -<p>"There are men of the Senn who hate the sfarri," she whispered close -to his ear. "Rumors have come to them that you possess some strange -weapon, some magic means of killing the hated sfarri."</p> - -<p>The McCanahan swallowed the cheap wine that had been chilled in a coil -of refrigerated stil. He nodded. "I know a way."</p> - -<p>It was on his lips to say more when his sidewise glance surprised a -momentary gleam in the gentle brown eyes. He needed no psychiatrist to -read that triumph for him, even though it was quickly veiled behind her -curving lashes. <i>Now why should a slave girl of the palace know that -feeling because of what I said?</i> he asked himself.</p> - -<p>The McCanahan put his arm about the girl, drew her in against him. With -his lips buried in the yellow mass of her hair, he whispered, "It ought -to be worth a lot to the Senn to get that knowledge! With such a weapon -they need never fear the sfarri again. They could cast them out! Even -seek alliance with the Solar Combine!"</p> - -<p>It was his last words that tensed the muscles across her soft back. -Instantly, the muscles were relaxed, and she melted closer against him, -her soft lips moving across his face to find his lips.</p> - -<p>The McCanahan kissed her. Why not? But he was warned, and only a fool -disregards a warning. And Kael McCanahan, as he drank from the scented -lips of Slyss the slave girl, was even then congratulating himself that -no McCanahan was ever a cursed gossoon.</p> - -<p>He let her go after a while. She was a pleasant little thing, but she -was no Flaith. He said, "Suppose I agree to trade my weapon for freedom -from the High Mor? How do I know the Senn can guarantee my liberty?"</p> - -<p>"I have the keys," she whispered. "Tonight I will come for you, to lead -you through the dungeons, to the vaults below the dungeons, where the -sea seeps in through solid rocks. No sfarran ever walks down there. It -is a dead, damp place. But the Senn go there to hide from the sfarri. -It is the one safe place on all Senorech. Slyss will take you there."</p> - -<p>He lingered over her lips, close by the unlocked cell door, to bind -their bargain. But when she was gone, he took to pacing his cell, his -brows drawn together. She wants more than the body of Kael McCanahan, -that one, he told himself. The weapon I possess, and me! Or am I -playing the buffoon in thinking she was fond of me? He went back over -their meetings and discovered to his chagrin that each of her moves -seemed calculated. Like a sfarran! Cold, careful! Even her kisses -lacked the fire such a woman should bring to them!</p> - -<p>As the sun sank below the hills above Akkalan, the McCanahan rested. -He was fresh when Slyss came to him on her bare feet, her key grating -silently into the cell lock. "Slib, the jailer, lies drugged with -wine," she told him. "He won't stop us."</p> - -<p>She went quickly along the cell corridor ahead of him. At an -intersection in the rock walls she slipped to the right, into dark -shadows. He heard the rough grate of metal, and a section of the floor -was rising and falling, as a balanced slab of rock fell back to expose -a number of handhewn stone ledges that served as steps.</p> - -<p>Slyss went first. The McCanahan came after her, and at her whispered -bidding, tilted the stone slab back into place. An instant before -it fell, as his eyes were still above the floor level, he saw a man -standing in the cell corridor, grinning at him.</p> - -<p>The McCanahan almost cried out to Slyss.</p> - -<p>The man in the cell corridor was burly, with black hair matted over his -chest. He jangled a ring of keys at his side. It was Slib, the jailer, -and his little eyes were clear and evil.</p> - -<p>No man who lay drugged with wine ever boasted eyes like that! The only -thing that troubled Kael was whether Slyss knew the jailer was awake -and watching. If she knew, then he was being led into a trap, like a -steer to the axing. If she did not know, then she was taking herself -unwittingly into that same trap.</p> - -<p>The McCanahan kicked off his buskins and walked with bare feet after -the girl, along the cool damp floor of the sea vaults. In olden days, -the primal men of Senorech had made their coves in these vaults to -escape the ravening monsters of the dawn era. Here and there, in the -light of the torches along the wall, he could see piles of white, -bleached bones.</p> - -<p>They walked for more minutes before he heard the faint rasp of metal -touching rock.</p> - -<p>Slyss was whirling, crying out.</p> - -<p>From the shadows, men came leaping. As he plunged sideways, Kael noted -that they were hardfaced Senn warriors. There was not a sfarran among -them.</p> - -<p>The McCanahan used his fist like a club, bringing its balled weight -down in a full arm stroke, hitting the nearest man at the side of his -neck, and driving him sideways into his companions. Before the man's -falling club touched the floor, Kael held it, bringing it upward in a -ceilingwise blow into the middle of the next man's belly.</p> - -<p>Kael McCanahan had fought in the port taverns of Marsopolis and -Dunverick. He had traded fists with Deneban dockwallopers and Karrvan -stevedores. He knew every trick in the creeds of a dozen fighting races.</p> - -<p>He used them all in the sea vaults below Akkalan. He used the club like -a sword, driving it hard into a Senn's face. He hit backwards with it. -He used an overhand, downward stroke, that drove the inches-long spikes -that studded its knob, deep into a man's braincase.</p> - -<p>It is no easy matter for ten men to cage one man. Not in dimly lighted -pits, with that one man an explosive cyclone of fists and bashing club. -Ten men keep getting in the way of each other. And Kael McCanahan was -there to make each mistake a costly one.</p> - -<p>He cut his opponents down to five in those first few minutes. Then he -was at the wall, ripping loose the olisene-drenched torch, hurling it -in their faces, to splatter in thick little globs of burning chemicals.</p> - -<p>With their screams of pain ringing in the sudden darkness, the -McCanahan slid forward into the blacker shadows. Out of sight he ran.</p> - -<p>He found a tunnel that sliced at an angle into the main vault. He went -along it, his bare feet making no sound.</p> - -<p>He discovered another converging corridor and raced along that. Inside -ten minutes, he lost himself in the labyrinthine vaults.</p> - -<p>He came to a halt in the blackness, lungs gulping at cool air that was -faintly spiced with seasalt. He listened, but heard no sound. When his -heart ceased to thud so heavily against his ribs, he moved again. But -now he went more cautiously, with the club before him like an overlong -arm, probing the darkness.</p> - -<p>He felt the cool updraft of air, just as his feet went out from under -him.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">VI</p> - -<p>He slid for thirty feet on a wet ramp that dropped him flat on his back -on the floor of a huge chamber lighted by radio-active filaments set -flush to the stone walls. At the far end of the vast room, two mighty -metal doors were hung on great bronze hinges.</p> - -<p>On the floor of the room rested a hundred great daises. And on each -dais lay a man or a woman.</p> - -<p>"A tomb," the McCanahan muttered. "I've found one of the Senn burial -chambers."</p> - -<p>As he crawled to his feet and stared, he knew that this was no tomb. -The bodies were flushed with life, and clad in the uniforms and -trappings of a hundred different people. The McCanahan rubbed a bruised -shoulder and went to walk among the daises.</p> - -<p>A shepherd boy with a ragged sheepskin across his loins and over one -shoulder, lay beside a trimly garbed officer of the Palace Guard. -Beyond them, a silk-swathed dancing girl lay beside a heavily muscled -halgor-driver, with the brown of the desert sun still on his forehead.</p> - -<p>The McCanahan touched an arm. It was warm. It yielded beneath his -fingers. He tried to rouse the man, without success.</p> - -<p>A face in the third row over from the main aisle tugged at some chord -of memory. He slipped between the daises, to stare down into the cold, -haughty face of Captain Herms Borkus of the Fleet.</p> - -<p>"Now would I had the wisdom of Bridget herself, the wisest woman in all -Ireland," muttered the McCanahan. "Is this a store-room where the High -Mor keeps those he has doomed to some punishment? Is it a place such as -the visi-chambers on Vreer and Anafelm, where men and women spend most -of their lives dreaming? And if it isn't any of these things, what in -the name of the sons of Strongbow is it?"</p> - -<p>He walked on, staring down at the faces of those who lay in this -trance-like slumber. He saw a face or two he knew from remembered -glimpses, in the days when he had walked the court of the High Mor as -the son of the Terran Ambassador.</p> - -<p>And then the McCanahan froze, and the blood in his veins moved with -sluggish torpor.</p> - -<p>Ahead of him, on the two largest daises of all, lay the twin bodies of -the High Mor.</p> - -<p>There was no mistake. He had seen that thin-lipped face too often where -it leered down at Solar Command uniforms from the ruboid throne of -Akkalan. The eyes were staring now, lifeless, but he remembered the -scorn and the supreme contempt that had been in their depths.</p> - -<p>The McCanahan was a baffled man.</p> - -<p>He walked around the coffers, and his lips opened to speak, but no -sound came out. "It's dreaming I am, with the little people flooding -my brain with fancies from a fevered mind! The High Mor, twins—no, -triplets!—for he must sit even now on the throne, dreaming up tortures -for my body."</p> - -<p>The creak of a door-hinge sent him to the floor.</p> - -<p>He stared at the opening door, and smothered a curse in his throat when -he saw the slave girl, Slyss of Aakan, glide into the room. She was -alone. She went to an empty pier and lay upon her back.</p> - -<p>And now the hair at the base of the McCanahan's neck stood straight up, -for something was rising from all along her body. A something that was -white and bright and dazzling, and from where he lay, Kael could feel -the utter coldness of the thing.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>"Noorlythin!" his numbed brain told him, and he hid his eyes.</p> - -<p>He heard a faint tinkling, such a sound as he had heard once before, -when he floated between the stars among the Doyen. He looked, and the -swirling white radiance that was Noorlythin was settling down on one of -the bodies of the High Mor, and the High Mor was sitting up, chafing at -wrists and fingers, swinging his legs to the floor.</p> - -<p>In the ancient legends of Terra, there was mention of an Arabic ruler, -one Haroun al Raschid, who went in disguise among his people, that he -might learn their thoughts and their way of living. It came to the -McCanahan as he lay here that Noorlythin was such a one, but he used no -simple disguises. He took the body of a man, or the body of a woman, -and possessed it.</p> - -<p>Kael retched silently, remembering the caresses he had given the slave -girl. That <i>thing</i> had been inside her, controlling the pity in her -eyes, the poses of her body. It had been Noorlythin who had led him -into the vaults below the castle, for some reason he did not yet know. -It had been Herms Borkus, seeking the secret of his harp. He knew now -why the smashing of the tube in the great machine had not shut off his -lack of motive power, as it had the robotlike bodies of the sfarran -crew.</p> - -<p>"By all the sand on Mars," the McCanahan gritted between his teeth, "I -have a secret worth a thousand suns in my hand. But how can I best use -it?"</p> - -<p>The High Mor was at the huge doors now. He went out without a backward -glance, and the doors slid shut behind him.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Kael came to his feet. He looked around him at the faces of the men -and women who lay awaiting the coming of the Doyen. He knew what he -had to do, and his face twisted in repugnance. Without these bodies, -Noorlythin was trapped in the body of the High Mor; he was the High -Mor, and no other. If these bodies were destroyed, smashed beyond -recognition, Noorlythin could never use them, perhaps to appear again -before the McCanahan in the guise of an officer or beautiful woman.</p> - -<p>Kael gripped his club more firmly and walked slowly down the long rows -of coffers. At each dais, he paused a little while and did what had -to be done. Once he stripped a man and donned the uniform of the Senn -Fleet, acquiring the rank of major.</p> - -<p>He left Slyss until the last.</p> - -<p>But when he stood there, looking down into that smooth face, eyeing -the yellow hair that tumbled around the creamy shoulders, he could not -nerve himself to the task at hand.</p> - -<p>"I'll let her be. At least I know her as a cradle for Noorlythin. I'll -be on my guard."</p> - -<p>With a sword at his side and an addy-gun holstered to his service belt, -the McCanahan dropped the club. He went to the doors and swung them -open, and walked out into a long corridor hewn from living stone.</p> - -<p>For nearly an hour he followed that corridor, travelling steadily -upwards. He emerged into a palace guardroom whose rack-hung walls were -filled with handguns and swords, with keen-edged axes and cloaks with -the dragon of the Senn emblazoned on collar and breast.</p> - -<p>And in the guard room, he found the High Mor waiting for him.</p> - -<p>"It is better this way," said the High Mor. "Just the two of us, face -to face. I thought it might be better, as Slyss, to lure you into a -Senn trap, and then to pretend a rescue by my sfarran guards just as -they were about to torture you. I thought I might claim your allegiance -that way."</p> - -<p>The McCanahan showed his teeth. "And after you'd wormed the truth of my -secret weapon out of me, you'd hang me to a rack with the metal hooks -biting into my naked back, and pull on my legs until the hooks came -out. After that—"</p> - -<p>The High Mor waved a hand.</p> - -<p>"There is no need of torture between us, Terran. Oh, at first I wanted -your life. Your father stumbled on a Senn scientist who discovered that -a certain microwave shattered a peculiar type glass much used by the -sfarri, due to sonic disturbances created in the atmosphere.</p> - -<p>"Since the sfarri are a race of robots, created by the Doyen so long -ago that were I to tell you the number of years involved they would -be meaningless to you, they are necessarily energized by machines. In -those machines a klyptric tube, made of that glass, forms an antennae -that picks up and transmits the power generated by the machine. It -broadcasts it in wave-lengths attuned to the internal structure of the -sfarri."</p> - -<p>"You tell me nothing new," Kael grated. "Most of that I learned myself -from putting one and two and three together."</p> - -<p>The High Mor threw back his jeweled cloak and rested a thigh on the -edge of a gaming table. His eyes glittered brightly.</p> - -<p>He said, "You are no fool, Terran. I do not underestimate you, believe -me. I tell you this to explain why I felt it necessary to kill your -father."</p> - -<p>"And Captain Edmunds! And Cassy Garson! And all the men who were in the -<i>Eclipse</i> when your sfarrans rayed her into a smoking ruin just outside -the planetal orbit of Senorech!"</p> - -<p>The High Mor gestured. His graceful white hands waved apology. "For all -that, I am sorry. I made a mistake. Now I offer what I can to atone for -my errors.</p> - -<p>"Join me. Wear my dragon! To you, I promise such power as no man has -ever dreamed. The wants of a Napoleon, or a Bral Kan of Procyon! Not -even Gartillin Vo of Deneb, or Cygnis Hannon will outshine you in the -splendor of your triumphs!</p> - -<p>"Do you think I want to spend my time in this?" and here the High Mor -gestured at his body. "I want to go back to the Temple of Sharrador -where once I dwelt for many ages, worshipped and adored."</p> - -<p>The McCanahan grinned. "You know I recognize you as Noorlythin?"</p> - -<p>"You were in the chamber where I keep the bodies I use. I felt your -presence."</p> - -<p>Kael stared his surprise.</p> - -<p>"I knew you watched," the High Mor went on. "I could have spoken to you -there. But it is better to meet you this way, face to face, away from -those reminders that I am not as you. In a humanoid body, I may speak -with you, as man to man.</p> - -<p>"Only this way can I hope to convince you that I offer you more than -you can ever gain without me. I am no man. I am a god! A god of primal -space! I have lived for eon piled upon eon, hunting and seeking through -the stars, studying the worlds I found. On some I lived for ages, -on others I dwelt for only a little while. All those worlds, Kael -McCanahan, I offer you!</p> - -<p>"Be an emperor, Terran! Rule every planet in all space. The greatest -jewels of Strae'eth or Vrann can be yours, to wear on your person or to -be hung in ropes of diamonds about the neck of any woman in all space! -Lead my battle fleets! On distant Sfar, my technicians shall make you a -hundred billion sfarrans to serve under your banner. They shall make -the greatest warships that ply the starlanes, each one encrusted with -your name!"</p> - -<p>The McCanahan shivered. It was a prospect that shook a man loose from -his moorings.</p> - -<p>To rule the stars! To sit on a throne and gaze out at the peoples of -the universe bowed before him. To have the faery women of Cygni and -Flormaseron in a harem, waiting his pleasure.</p> - -<p>It was a thought that would have appealed to nine men in ten. Kael -McCanahan called himself a fool, but he turned his visions aside.</p> - -<p>"I want no conquests. I want no jewels. The only woman I want is -Flaith. Where is she?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The High Mor sighed. "In a tower, well guarded. No harm has come to -her. No harm will come. I am no sadist to harm a woman. Not when what I -seek is possessed by a man. Tell me, Terran. What is your price?"</p> - -<p>"Peace! Friendship with Terra and the men of Terra. Let the Solar -Combine send its traders to Senorech. Peace between the peoples of the -stars."</p> - -<p>The High Mor laughed. "I too, seek peace. A peace that will end with my -dragon banner floating above the towers of New Washington, Terra. With -your precious Solar Combine run by the sfarri. I offer you a place in -that peace, Kael McCanahan. A high place. The highest place of all! I -am a god! I have no need of earthly things. You do.</p> - -<p>"Give me your answer, Terran!"</p> - -<p>For a moment, the temptation was there. But in that same moment, -the McCanahan remembered the blasted <i>Eclipse</i>, and the dead Father -he loved, and Captain Edmunds, straight and lean in his white Fleet -uniform. A memory came to him of Cassy Garson and the kisses she had -given him in a drifting galley on the Tigranian Sea. The High Mor -was not human. He knew nothing of the loves and lusts, the fears and -terrors of human beings. He was as far removed from the Senn and -Terrans as man is from the ant.</p> - -<p>"I answer—no! You'd blacken Earth with your rays and leave empty -ruins. You'd take everything in space! And me—what of me?"</p> - -<p>The High Mor smiled. "You would rule the universe!"</p> - -<p>But Kael McCanahan shook his head stubbornly. "I cannot believe that. -If I once tell you—"</p> - -<p><i>Beware, Terran!</i></p> - -<p>The Doyen thought warned him just in time.</p> - -<p>The High Mor brought his hand out from under his cloak and he held a -black-metal stinger in his fingers. It spat a stream of violent fire at -the McCanahan.</p> - -<p>Kael dove sideways. The tip of his finger slipped through the violet -fire and it stung with the agony of seared nerve-ends. If full effect -of that blast had touched him he would be writhing helplessly on the -floor, his body one gigantic mass of pain.</p> - -<p>He had seen the stinger turned on unregenerate killers. It softened -them in a hurry.</p> - -<p>His shoulder hit the edge of the table where the High Mor sat. The -table upended, and the High Mor fell to the floor with him.</p> - -<p>Kael put a hand to the throat of the other man and his fingers -tightened and squeezed. It was like choking a bar of steel. The High -Mor forced a laugh through his lips, and his body twisted like an -uncoiling spring and forced the McCanahan from him.</p> - -<p>"The Doyen warned you. I caught the thought they put in your brain! -Well, let them play their game. They can only interfere with me when I -use my Doyen powers to destroy you. I have other gifts to use!"</p> - -<p>A fist dove at his face, but the McCanahan was a master at rough and -tumble fighting. He slipped it and bored in. His fists drummed into the -High Mor's belly, lifted and threw him back to rebound off the far wall.</p> - -<p>A dozen weapons came tumbling down on the ruler of Senorech. A cloak -swathed his flailing arms.</p> - -<p>Kael stepped back, waiting.</p> - -<p>That was where he made his mistake. For the High Mor slid to the floor -in a crumpled heap, and the thing that was Noorlythin glowed and pulsed -and moved its frosted tendrils, free of its fallen body.</p> - -<p>As Noorlythin moved its tendrils, the floor fell away beneath the -booted heels of the McCanahan. The walls of the guardroom went out of -existence, and Kael was falling, falling.</p> - -<p><i>Gird yourself, Terran! You go into subspace where no other living -thing can enter! Not even another Doyen to shield you from my wrath! -For each Doyen has in him the seeds of material creation, and what one -Doyen materializes, no other Doyen can disturb!</i></p> - -<p>And the high, mocking laughter followed him down and down, into the -eternal blackness where he fell.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">VII</p> - -<p>A hot sun blanketed his naked body. It blazed from a molten sky and -cooked him where he lay on warm red rocks. Kael McCanahan lifted his -head and stared at the searing desolation before him. Sand and rock, -and the shale of evaporated seas, stretching like the finger of Time -to infinity itself, outward to that blazing blue bowl of sky where the -golden sun hung high, pouring down its heat.</p> - -<p>He came to his feet and swayed with the pain that the heat was putting -in his muscles.</p> - -<p><i>Come to me! Come! Come!</i></p> - -<p>He put trembling hands to his head, and again that sweet call sounded, -with the siren lure of all the lost treasures of all space.</p> - -<p>He stumbled forward, hearing the summons in his brain, in every fibre -of his being.</p> - -<p><i>Come to my riches! Lift up your hands to the jewel that gives man -everything he wants! Touch me! I am yours!</i></p> - -<p>He was running across the hot sands that bit his naked feet with hot -teeth, and over the sharp rocks that cut into his flesh until he bled. -Dimly, he knew that nothing could help him now. That here he was cut -off from everything that was sane.</p> - -<p>This mad world was a creation of Noorlythin. His was the wild brain -that dreamed the sands and the rocks and the awful desolation. His -dream, that sun that cooked while it shone.</p> - -<p>Sobbing, he ran. He fell to his knees, and he crawled.</p> - -<p>With bleeding fingers he clawed at the rocks, making himself rise and -run again.</p> - -<p>It seemed to the man that had once been Kael McCanahan that he was -running around a planet. The pain was part of him, now. His muscles -jerked in agony at every step, yet always he forced himself to run -faster, faster, gulping down the hot desert air. That siren call was -strong in his ears.</p> - -<p><i>Run, Terran! Run to me!</i></p> - -<p>He ran on and on, and now he saw the others, men like himself, running -on bleeding feet, crawling when those feet were worn to cracked stumps. -And before each of those men, or before Kael McCanahan's own eyes, -gleamed—</p> - -<p><i>The eye of Lirflane!</i></p> - -<p>A globe of a red jewel it was, the eye. Imprisoned in its faceted -surface were the dreams of a billion people. The man that looked on it -saw the happiness he sought, and he fought to join himself to it, that -his own dreams would add to the total of all the others. And on the -dreams and on the flesh of these men who came to it, drawn by its siren -voice and by the eternity of delight it promised, the eye of Lirflane -feasted, waxed and swelled.</p> - -<p>A man tried to claw at his legs as Kael McCanahan ran past him. Red -eyes in a bloated face hurled hate at him, as his hand closed on his -ankle.</p> - -<p>The McCanahan shook himself free and ran on.</p> - -<p>The eye was closer now.</p> - -<p>It grew massive, transparent. In its redness, the redness of the hair -of flaming Flaith beckoned. Her white body swayed and danced, and her -throaty voice summoned him.</p> - -<p>The McCanahan's arms shook as he put them out, trying to pull himself -forward with handfulls of hot, desert air.</p> - -<p>Now the Eye of Lirflane was before him, and all he could see was Flaith -moving toward him, her arms wide and beckoning—</p> - -<p>One step he moved, and another.</p> - -<p>His hand went out, toward the gleaming red side of the monstrous jewel.</p> - -<p><i>Come to me, Kael McCanahan! Come to the peace and the forgetfulness -you have earned. Take me in your arms. Drink kisses from my lips!</i></p> - -<p>The McCanahan sobbed.</p> - -<p>He shook in torture more vivid than the agony in his feet and muscles.</p> - -<p>"Not Flaith!" he cried. "Not Flaith! You—woman of the jewel! -Witchwoman of Lirflane! Not Flaith!"</p> - -<p>He went to his knees, to anchor himself the better to the ground, -against the siren call of the mighty Eye.</p> - -<p>"No. Got to fight! Get free. Free...."</p> - -<p>He fought there on his knees, while men streamed past him, rushing -with insane desire into the red heaven of the jewel. Their eyes were -mad with the greed or the lust that shook them, for every man saw in -the Eye of Lirflane what his own eyes wanted most to see. Their bodies -were torn and gaunt from their struggle across the sand and rock -desolation. But they would lose their pain, within the bosom of the red -eye.</p> - -<p>Kael fought. He fought silently, until the sweat came out on his face -in big globes, until it runneled down his chest and thighs. His belly -and his back were awash with the salt dampness.</p> - -<p>At last he turned, just a little, so that only a corner of the fabulous -Eye remained in his vision.</p> - -<p>An hour later, he turned again, and now he saw only the barren -loneliness of this abandoned world. And as he stared, the sand and the -rocks and the sky ran with liquid movement as a painting might run in -a bath of chemicals. And the streaming reds and buffs and yellows, the -black and the greens and purples flowed together and formed a river, -that swept the tortured legs of the McCanahan out from under him.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He screamed in his agony as the salt water bit into his bleeding -wounds. He babbled and twisted, flailing the salt sea with animal -desperation. He drowned in this vast emptiness of ocean, with no hand -to grasp his or eye to witness his going.</p> - -<p>"No," he shouted to the gray leaden sky above him. "I won't die! I'll -live! I'll live!"</p> - -<p>His arms and his legs moved, and clumsily, he swam. No driftwood -floated here. Here a man had to swim to stay alive, until his arms and -his legs grew numb with his effort, and he sank.</p> - -<p>The McCanahan turned on his back, and the salt water buoyed him up. He -floated for endless days, and during endless nights, and the tiny spark -of life within him waxed and waned. And out of the eternity of no-time, -as he swam and alternately floated, a wing-prowed galley slipped -through the foam-crested waves. Its white sail bellied in the ocean -wind. It veered and came for him, running easily in the water.</p> - -<p>From the rail, a bearded face scowled down at him. A hairy hand threw -a rope that he twisted around his middle. He was dragged on deck, to -stand dripping with the salt water that seared his wounds.</p> - -<p>A rope was whipped around his wet wrists and he was dragged to the slim -mast that rose from the deck, before the oarbanks where slaves pulled -at smooth-handled oars.</p> - -<p>A woman whose flesh was tinted a delicate green came toward him. She -walked with quick, supple strides, and the McCanahan noted numbly that -her eyes were a feral green, and that her tiny ears were pointed. A -whip coiled in her hand.</p> - -<p>She showed her tiny teeth in a cruel smile.</p> - -<p>"You are the man from Terra! You are the one who turned down all the -worlds of space! For that you must be punished!"</p> - -<p>And the long lash went snaking out in an arc, slashing into his back, -and the sheer agony of the cutting whip slammed his body against the -mast. The lash came down and lifted, came down and lifted, and the -McCanahan sagged in the ropes that held him.</p> - -<p>With the cruelty of her species, the cat-woman flogged him. When she -was done, she cut him loose and stood over him on the swaying deck that -was stained with his blood. Her voice was soft, furry.</p> - -<p>"Take him and chain him to an oar! Rivet the manacles on his wrists and -ankles! Let him tug an oar for a year! Then perhaps he will obey Him -who is ALL!"</p> - -<p>He was kicked and shoved across the deck. He tumbled into an empty slot -on an oarbench. His wrists and ankles were shackled, the armorer not -caring where his metal mallet fell.</p> - -<p>For a day he rested, with black bread soaked in wine forced between -his teeth. For a day, he knew only the blessedness of not moving. His -slumber was dreamless—</p> - -<p>In a red dawn, he was wakened by the bite of an overseer's whip across -his bloody back. His hands lifted and went to the oar-handle, and his -body swayed and returned, and he put his weight with the weight of the -men who held the same oar as he.</p> - -<p>The galley slipped through the heaving ocean, and the red oars flashed -in the sun, and the salt spray stung, and only when an errant wind -swept across the seas was there any rest for the men who slaved on the -benches. Sometimes men died, and were flung overboard. Other men were -unshackled and dragged screaming to the foredeck, where the cat-woman -waited, pink tongue licking her lips, the whip curling like a live -thing in her hands.</p> - -<p>And of all the men who worked the oars in this endless ocean, it was -the McCanahan who was chosen most often for her amusement.</p> - -<p>Once he almost died under the biting whip, and in that moment of pain -and numbness, when his senses seemed about to float from his body, -the cat-woman leaned close and her furry voice whispered, "Speak your -secret to me, man of Terra! Tell me the weapon that slays the sfarri!"</p> - -<p>But the McCanahan only shook his head and his hair, long uncut, tumbled -on his bleeding shoulders.</p> - -<p>The days were endless on that ocean, and the oars swung and the sail -creaked, flapping overhead, and the overseer tramped the runway with -endless patience, his voice a sullen growl. The cat-woman came to look -upon the McCanahan and her slim greenish fingers came forth to stroke -his naked back where her lash had marred it. Always her throaty voice -whispered to him, speaking of the delights that might be found in her -cabin, if only he were not so stubborn.</p> - -<p>When her patience was at an end, she motioned to the overseer and he -came with armed guards and unchained the McCanahan, and he was led to -the mast and roped.</p> - -<p>And then, in the middle of a whipsting, the ocean and the ship and the -cat-woman's whip fell away....</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He lay on a hard, cold floor.</p> - -<p>The High Mor stood before him, his hard eyes glittering. Kael was back -in the guardroom that he had left—how long ago?</p> - -<p>"A year," said the High Mor, reading his thought. "A year and five -days! And yet, the barest split second of Time. I sent you out to those -worlds of subspace, Kael McCanahan. There you lived, and almost died. -You rowed at a real oar. You suffered the cuts of a real whip. Look at -yourself!"</p> - -<p>The High Mor threw a small metal mirror at him. Dazedly he stared at -the grim, hard brown face and the cold blue eyes he saw mirrored on its -surface. His flesh was brown, and great muscles swelled under it. The -oar had put those muscles there, as the whip had put the scars on his -ribs and back.</p> - -<p>"Only a split second of our time, Terran," said the High Mor. "But a -year and five days in the worlds I made! I told you I had gifts! I -have made a thousand million worlds for that subspace, in the eons that -I have roamed the stars. I am a god!"</p> - -<p>Kael shook his head and his long hair flicked his naked arms. If he -needed proof of the High Mor's words, his long-uncut hair was proof -enough.</p> - -<p>He thought, <i>Tell him, and let him have his way! How can a man fight a -god?</i> The thought washed over him that he fought for all mankind, that -the men and women of a thousand planets unknowingly depended on his -fight. Women like the flame-tressed Flaith, men like his father and -Captain Edmunds, who did their duty and died for it, all depended on -what he did.</p> - -<p>He had to think, to go over this logically. What would be the thought -processes of a god? A god was no mere mortal, to be judged and weighed -by human wants and failings. In it there was no mercy, no thought for -anything but itself.</p> - -<p>Kael pushed himself away from the floor to stand on long brown legs.</p> - -<p><i>Courage, man of Terra! He shall not trap you so again!</i></p> - -<p>The Doyen voice gave him heart, but the High Mor sneered.</p> - -<p>"I heard it, too, Terran! The Doyen cannot help you. Not unless I -strive by Doyen means to kill you. I need not do that, Kael McCanahan, -need I?"</p> - -<p>The McCanahan shook his head like a dumb animal. He would never go back -to that subspace where Noorlythin was a god in truth! To that hell, -where a second was a year, where the Doyen themselves could not enter!</p> - -<p>"I could put you there again, Terran. I could forget you, let you live -out your life for an eternity of seconds that are years! Would you -listen to reason then? Would you like to test your will again against -that of the Eye of Lirflane? Or feel once more the lash of Vigrette, -the cat-woman? No, I read in your eyes that you would not!</p> - -<p>"Come, then. Tell me how you made the sfarri die!"</p> - -<p><i>Speak, man of Terra! Tell Noorlythin what he seeks! Only then, as he -absorbs the knowledge, can we reach him!</i></p> - -<p>The McCanahan shrugged the great shoulders that were scarred with the -lash above the smooth roll of their bulging muscles. His head hung so -that his uncut hair shielded his face.</p> - -<p>"The harp," he whispered. "On the harp of Brith Tsinan is a silver -string. The d-note! I strung it with a silvern wire that I loosed from -my father's wrist!"</p> - -<p>And as he spoke, he moved.</p> - -<p>As liquid as the falling waters in the Veil of Valmoora was the leap -of the McCanahan. Full into the High Mor he hurtled, knocking him -sideways. And as they went down together—</p> - -<p>The Doyen struck!</p> - -<p>The very rocks of the palace misted and swirled under that awesome -clutching. White fire flared and seared, and where it touched, all -matter was destroyed! The walls of the palace shook and quivered. Beams -groaned under the sudden stress.</p> - -<p>Where the guardroom had been, was empty nothingness!</p> - -<p>In a flame that lapped him protectingly as it flared fiercely and -strongly at Noorlythin himself, the Doyen carried both men upward. So -swift was their transmission through normal space that in one blinding -surge of the white flame, the McCanahan found himself between the -worlds, in some lost, dark blotch of empty space.</p> - -<p>"No Doyen may slay another Doyen!"</p> - -<p>That voice rang triumphantly in the abyss.</p> - -<p>"There is a way, Noorlythin! That is why we have let you work your will -on this man. He hates you with a deadly hate, Noorlythin. You put him -in your worlds of subspace, and you abandoned him to the creatures of -your own creation!"</p> - -<p>"Aie! I abandoned him! Were it not for him and his harp, I would reign -as a god on every planet in all inhabited space. The Solar Combine -would have fallen to my sfarran battle fleet!"</p> - -<p>"You dared not move before you knew the one weapon that might defeat -you!"</p> - -<p>"Now I know! Now! Now!"</p> - -<p>The radiant energy in the thing that was Noorlythin was awful. It beat -and flared redly through the whiteness. The McCanahan shuddered as its -heat beat out at him, chilling even as it seared.</p> - -<p><i>Courage, Terran! Courage for what lies ahead!</i></p> - -<p>And now the voices shrank and whispered, piping like elfin horns -within his head, that none but he could hear.</p> - -<p><i>Through you, we may destroy him! Courage! With your help, he -dies—forever!</i></p> - -<p>He knew what he had to do. Of his free will he had to offer himself -to Noorlythin! Of his free will, he had to fling himself into the mad -embrace of those pulsing tendrils, that had turned Lunol the peddler to -black and drifting dust!</p> - -<p><i>He gave you to the Eye of Lirflane! He gave you to the cat-woman and -her whip!</i></p> - -<p>The McCanahan snarled. "Destroy him, and I save the Solar Combine! I -hear you, Doyen. I hear and I—obey!"</p> - -<p>And Kael McCanahan flung himself headlong, forward into the white -whirlwind of force that was Noorlythin.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>In the Chamber of Living Death, she who had been Slyss of Aakan -quivered fitfully. A bubble of froth broke from her red lips. She -moaned and stirred. A hand lifted, struggled feebly, fell back to her -side, limp and waxen.</p> - -<p>Slyss opened brown eyes. She lay silent, staring upward at the ceiling. -A sob fought its way upward from her throat.</p> - -<p>"Noorlythin is dead! His control over me and the others—gone forever!"</p> - -<p>She rolled off the dais and stared around her, at the dead bodies. She -shivered. She went to the doors and pulled them open. In the distance, -she could hear the frightened roaring of terrified men. She began to -run.</p> - -<p>Flaith shook the bars of the cell that held her. Her red hair made a -living flame about her shoulders.</p> - -<p>"What is happening? What is it?" she screamed.</p> - -<p>A terrified jailer paused in his heavy run past her cell.</p> - -<p>"The palace is falling in! The High Mor is dead. His body has been -found!"</p> - -<p>Flaith shook the barred door.</p> - -<p>"Let me out! Please, please! Give me a chance to save myself!"</p> - -<p>The jailer licked his lips. He glanced up and down the corridor, then -slid the key into the lock. The door opened under a push from his hand. -"If the High Mor is dead," he told the girl, "maybe the sfarri won't -stay here on Senorech! Maybe the Senn can rule themselves, now."</p> - -<p>Flaith caught the man by his arm.</p> - -<p>"The one I was captured with! Kael McCanahan, the Earther! Where is he?"</p> - -<p>"Nobody knows! His cell is empty."</p> - -<p>"His harp? Man, where is his harp?"</p> - -<p>The jailer shook himself free and started down the corridor. Over his -shoulder he called, "Look in the storehouse beyond the cell block. We -keep all prisoners' effects in there!"</p> - -<p><i>Terran! Wake to life, Kael McCanahan!</i></p> - -<p>He was dead. He had thrown himself into the fiery maw of the thing that -was Noorlythin. Who called him now? Who spoke these lies?</p> - -<p><i>You live, Terran. You served as the catalyst that enabled us to focus -our powers against Noorlythin.</i></p> - -<p>Even a high school student knew that a catalyst retained its own -identity during the chemical change it brought about between two -substances; even such substances as were the Doyen, gods of space.</p> - -<p>Kael opened his eyes.</p> - -<p>He lay on a floor in the wreckage of the guardroom in the palace of -Akkalan. In the distance, but growing closer, he heard the faint -strumming of harpstrings. He lay there and listened to the harp, as -life flowed stronger into his body.</p> - -<p>The strumming came nearer.</p> - -<p>The McCanahan stood up and he waited, big and brown, marked with scars.</p> - -<p>Flaith stood in the broken doorway, her fingers falling from the harp. -Tears had formed twin channels from her red-lashed eyes along her -cheeks. When she saw Kael, she did not know him. And then he grinned, -and his long hair and scarred brown body were forgotten.</p> - -<p>She flung herself at him, and lay against him, trembling.</p> - -<p>He told her of the High Mor and what he had been, and of how the Doyen -had destroyed him. "We've won, Flaith. He's dead, forever. With the -harp—and the vibrators that we'll build to duplicate its pitch—the -Solar Combine will move on Sfar. Smash it, and its robot life!"</p> - -<p>Laughter bubbled in her throat as she looked up at him. "They'll reward -you, Kael. Make you somebody big on Terra!"</p> - -<p>The McCanahan grinned and hugged her.</p> - -<p>"An admiral at least! How would you like to be wed to an admiral, -Flaith mavourneen?"</p> - -<p>Her answer rocked him, in the hunger of her mouth on his.</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WARLOCK OF SHARRADOR ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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