by Lin Carter
"Lord, I--I--" she stammered, her mind racing furiously.
"You what? You came here to spy, is that it?"
"No! I came only to..."
He sprang forward and seized her wrist, twisting it in a merciless grip.
"Speak, girl, or I will break your arm," Pangoy hissed, exerting subtle pressure. "Whom are you spying for? What faction? Is it Kynarion, or Loigar, or Iosophus, or--the Queen? Speak, you little fool!"
Sobbing with pain, Caola writhed in the Nexian's terrible grip. Her arm blazed with agony. Needles of intolerable fire lanced through her muscles.
"Please, Lord Pangoy! I spy for no one. I am here by accident--a wrong turning of the corridor--" He smiled mirthlessly.
"You lie, girl. My chambers are clearly marked. You would have to be blind to enter here by error. And the door is sealed by magic, it opens only to the touch of the signet ring I wear. Speak the truth now, or I'll--"
He increased the pressure and Caola screamed.
It was this shrill cry that woke Kirin from his slumbers. He opened bleared eyes to see the girl struggling in the clutches of Pangoy. Although every movement cost him pain, he fought against the straps that held him.
"Caola! Let her go, you torturing fiend!"
Pangoy cast a look of astonishment at the man he had thought incapacitated for hours. Then he smiled and hurled the whimpering girl against the wall with one powerful shove.
"So, we have awakened from our little swoon, eh? How nice!" he chuckled, striding towards the table whereon Kirin writhed helplessly.
"Don't touch her again, you pig, or I'll break both of your arms," Kirin growled.
Pangoy smiled again.
"So that's it! You have a friend within the palace, eh? This girl did not enter my quarters by accident, but to discover where you were hidden... I see! A conspiracy. How many others are in this, girl? Speak up!"
He turned away from the bound Earthling to confront the slave-girl who had staggered to her feet. One hand went to his waist where the glittering metal coil of a neuronic whip dangled.
Caola sucked in her breath when she saw it. She had seen slaves in agony under the neuronic whip before and she knew the incredible agony the touch of the electric lash caused. The metal of the whip was charged with electric force keyed to the vibrations of the human nervous system. A single touch brought a burst of unendurable agony searing through every nerve in the body. She moaned and lifted her hands in mute supplication as Pangoy drew forth the whip.
Bound to the table, Kirin also saw and recognized the whip. The girl he fuzzily remembered had been friendly to himself and Doctor Temujin in their cell, hours or days before. Although his mind throbbed with red waves of pain and his body felt like it had been beaten with clubs on every square inch, he strove against the metal straps. And they shattered!
The squeal of rending metal screeched through the chamber. Pangoy jerked around, his face blank with amazement, to behold the Earthling's nude body descending from the table. Those straps should have held a bull buphodon helpless. But they had shattered into atoms beneath one surge of the Earthling's muscles!
He raised the whip against Kirin as the Earthling stumbled towards him. The power-pack in the hilt of the whip sparked with energy as Pangoy thumbed the power switch. Blue flickering flames wavered along the length of the lashing metal whip. The pungence of ozone filled the chamber.
Pangoy shook out the neuronic whip. Fiery sparks spat and crackled.
"Kirin, look out!" Caola cried. But the Earthling lurched forward, unheeding. Some nameless force rose within his mind, directing his steps. He was caught in the grip of an unseen master and sent staggering forward like a jointed puppet guided by an invisible hand.
Pangoy laughed and lashed out with the whip.
Kirin reached up and caught it. Fire sizzled about his arm, but unseen webs of force turned aside the electric flames before they could touch and sear his flesh. Force webs bent and the very fabric of space twisted. Energy was turned back upon its own source.
And the whip-handle exploded in Pangoy's hand!
With a deafening retort the power-pack in the handle detonated. There was a fierce flash of white fire and the Mind Wizard recoiled, shrieking, clutching his burnt and blackened hand. Minute droplets of super-heated liquid metal sizzled, deeply imbedded in his seared flesh.
Caola watched, her eyes widening with incredulity, as Kirin advanced step by step upon the crippled Mind Wizard. Pangoy awoke to the danger that confronted him and turned from the Earthling's path, hurrying over to the laboratory bench. There he snatched up the mind-amplifying helmet and set it upon his brows. His features were pale with agony and contorted with rage and baffled fury.
Never in the seven centuries of his surgically-prolonged existence had Pangoy of Nex been so outrageously treated. He lusted for revenge. Now, with the invincible mind helmet at his command, he could hold off a hundred warriors. Lights flashed into being amidst the sparkling coils of glass and metal that adorned the curiously-shapen helm.
He hurled a mental bolt at the naked Earthling.
The bolt of mind force was immaterial, but it struck like the blow of a sledge-hammer, thudding into Kirin's belly. Breath gusted from his lungs. He sagged and fell forward to his knees, gasping with intolerable pain. The mental bolt had struck at those nerve-centers of the brain that registered pain. They stimulated the nerve-sequences connected to the Earthling's solar plexus. The result was the exact neural simulation of a body blow of terrific force; there was no way of determining a genuine blow from a neurally-simulated one, since the nerve centers of Kirin's brain could only register the pain caused.
As he sagged on his knees, gasping for breath, a lash of liquid fire seared his bent back. He stiffened erect under the fiery touch. Then a terrific blow to one temple sent him sprawling, his mind be-fogged. He clung to consciousness with tenacity, enduring the buffets that tore and flailed at his defenseless body. A red whirling mist arose to engulf his mind. He was moments from unconsciousness.
Then a surge of extraordinary vitality ran through him. It was as if in the last extremity of his endurance, he had tapped some hidden source of inner strength. Slowly, stiffly, incredibly, he rose to his feet, ignoring the whirling storm of invisible blows that lashed his flesh.
Pangoy gaped incredulously. Brows knotted in fury, he redoubled the frenzied attack.
But Kirin felt nothing. Invisible force ran throughout his body. Nerve centers were insulated against the simulated attacks of the mental bolts. The bolts were deflected. Kirin towered indomitable and victorious; the Mind Wizard was helpless to cause him harm.
Then the tide of battle turned. From somewhere, Kirin became aware of a weird extension of himself. He struck out with it and watched the Mind Wizard stagger back, reeling under a hail of invisible blows. It was an uncanny experience. Kirin had become aware of his brain as if it were an extra limb he had never used till now. Suddenly he knew precisely how to strike out with the power of his mind alone, how to hurl irresistible force into the brain of his opponent. Surging power drove from him. Bolts of mental fury slammed Pangoy against the wall. The helmet fell from his nodding brows and exploded in mid-air.
Kirin mentally plucked up the half-conscious Wizard and sent his helpless body crashing into the lab table. It went over in a cascade of shattering glass and splattering fluids. Chemicals mixed together, smoldering into flame. A spray of liquid fire splashed over the unconscious body of Pangoy. His torn robes ignited in a soundless flash. In a second he was sheathed in a chrysalis of blinding white fire.
Swaying numb and half-conscious amidst the shambles, Kirin suddenly came to himself again. His mysterious mastery of mental power vanished as inexplicably as it had come. Nerves no longer sustained against sensation now shrieked with pain. He felt numb, bruised, pummeled. He staggered and would have fallen amidst the running pools of flaming fluids, but Caola caught his arm and steadied him. He blinked through oily chemical smoke to peer at her tear-st
ained face.
"What happened?" he mumbled.
"I... don't know," she said faintly. "You fought Pangoy and... you conquered him!"
"Where is he?"
She tugged at his arm. "He is dead. Quick! We have little time to waste. The fire will be noticed. The alarm will be given and the metal men will come. Quick--here are your garments."
With the help of the War Maid, Kirin struggled into his suit of grey celloflex, seamed it up, and followed her into the black opening that led to the secret passage through the walls of the citadel.
The door swung shut behind them on a scene of flaming wreckage amidst which the blacked corpse of Pangoy the Nexian lay staring mindlessly, contemplating nothingness.
10. STEEL AGAINST STEEL!
Within the secret passage, Caola led Kirin through unbroken darkness. The sudden surge of amazing strength wherewith the Earthling had battled against the mental forces of Pangoy had now ended, and he was drained of energy. His skull throbbed with red waves of pain; it rung like a beaten anvil. His arms and legs were numbed, drained of strength. Several times he stumbled and would have fallen had it not been for the quick-minded girl at his side, who supported him with strong arms. There was no time to rest. They must go forward.
The walls of the passage were thin. They could hear the banshee-scream of alarms, the ringing feet of steel warriors as they gathered to quench the fires that had turned the ruined laboratory of Pangoy into a blinding inferno. Obviously, the corridor beyond was thronged with their enemies. They could not yet emerge from the hidden passage concealed behind the walls. Caola did not know what to do.
She had explored much of the network of secret spy-ways that wound through the ancient citadel, but she was familiar only with a portion of them. She feared to go too far beyond her accustomed paths, lest they become lost in the maze of hidden passages. The only alternative was to sit here in the close darkness and wait for the halls to be cleared so they could come out through one of the secret doors, and that course would lose them their single slim advantage: time.
Half-fainting, Kirin slumped at her side, gasping for breath, knuckling his aching brows in dumb agony. He had suffered excruciatingly under the torments of the Mind Probe, and his body had taken an unmerciful pummeling during his battle with the Nexian. He was in no condition to think clearly or to fight. To risk the corridors would be foolhardy.
"Why are we... just standing here?" he mumbled. The girl explained their predicament in brief words. He rubbed his temples, striving to use his wits.
"Do these passages... extend into the cells where... Doc and I were kept?"
"I do not know," she confessed hesitantly. "I have never had reason to find out. Mostly, I have used the secret passages in the central part of the palace, to spy on the Witch Queen and her councils..."
"Well, now is as good a time as any," he grunted. "Let's see if they do."
So they went forward in the pitch-darkness of the passages, and Caola desperately hoped her sense of direction would lead her rightly. It was risky to use the spy-eyes when the halls were filled with people, and one corridor looked very much like another. Still, there was nothing to do but try...
Doctor Temujin waited, fretful and anxious, for the return of Caola with some word as to the whereabouts and the fate of Kirin. Time seemed to stretch out unendurably. He had no timepiece and hence could not correctly fudge the elapsed interval, but it seemed like long hours since she had left him behind.
Then came a disturbance. The shrill clangor of alarms, the crash of metal feet against the stone-paved stair. The shout of human voices. The tension of not knowing what was happening became unbearable. He gnawed the end of his mustache, wringing his fat hands, groaning at the suspense. For all he knew, Caola might have been captured and her mission revealed... for all he knew, Kirin might be in the corridor beyond, battling hopelessly against the horde of steel-clad titans who guarded this citadel of sorcery...
At last he could wait no longer, he must find out what was happening! Luckily, the slave-girl had brought him his slim ivory rod. He fondled it with loving hands. Not only was the device a powerful weapon, but a cunning tool with many uses.
He made certain adjustments to the controls in the hilt, muttering a potent mantrum under his breath as he did so. Then he reversed the wand so that its pointed end was directed towards his body. He released the power switch concealed in the handle.
A stream of invisible force enveloped him from head to foot. Carefully he turned his body so as to make certain that every part of his anatomy was bathed in the invisible rays that now emanated from the Rod of Power.
Had anyone been in the luxurious cell with him at the time, they would have been astounded at the miraculous change that passed slowly over the fat form of the little thaumaturge. His plump rotundity became ghostly and translucent. Through his limbs and torso an observer could have seen the dim outlines of walls and furniture. Slowly, his body became as transparent as air itself, until at length Temujin was completely invisible.
In this curious and temporary state, he was blinded. To him it seemed as if he stood in utter and unrelieved blackness. This was the natural result of the weird transformation caused by the high-energy rays emitted by his ivory instrument. The rays aligned the molecular structure of his component particles until the magnetic poles of his atoms were mono-directional. No longer did the photons of light rebound from the surface of his body, repelled by contact with the magnetic fields of his atomic structure. Now every atom pointed in a single direction, and the light that touched him passed through his body without hindrance. It was like opening the bunds upon a window: the slats all pointing in the direction of the light-source permit light rays to pass through the shuttered windows. Only the comparatively minute edges of the blinds catch and repel the light. Thus it was with Temujin's body; the alignment of the magnetic poles made his flesh 99.99% invisible.
He padded swiftly to the door and fumbled across it until his fat fingers found the lock. Then he altered the setting of his wand and released a narrow stream of intense energy against the mechanism. Metal fused, glowed white, and flowed down the surface of the door in superheated droplets. He edged the door open slightly and squeezed out. Now he was in the hall. There should have been at least two of the metal robot guards stationed before the portal, but in his blinded condition he could not see them. It was a great drawback in the invisibility process that the retinas of his eyes were also rendered transparent to light under the effect of the ray. Light passed through his eyes without reacting upon the rod-and-cone mechanism of the organs. Alas, there was no help for it. He stood still and listened.
Straining his ears, he heard a high-pitched and almost inaudible burst of electronic "noise." One of the robots was communicating to its companion the fact that the door they guarded was now partially open. He listened for the reply, and when it came he now formed a mental picture of the position of .he two automatons in relation to himself. Hence he stepped lightly around them and tip-toed off down the corridor in the direction of the alarm and clamor.
He sidled along one wall of the corridor, for he could never know when someone might come by, and not being able to see Temujin the stranger might very well collide with him if he were foolish enough to walk through the middle of the hall in his present blinded and invisible state. But few people walk along the far side of a hall, commonly preferring the clear space in the center. Hence, although several persons or automata went past him, none so much as brushed against the fat little wizard.
He came to a junction of two halls. Here, he remembered, a coiling flight of steps led down to a lower level. This was a tricky space to navigate in his blinded condition, but he went carefully, feeling his way with outstretched fingers wherever possible.
The stench of burning cloth and wood came to his nostrils. He heard men coughing and exclaiming. Someone had caused a fire in the further portions of the palace, that was obvious. He wondered if his friends could be the culprits, a
nd if the fire was intended as a diversion.
A dim wavering light became visible.
Temujin froze, convulsed with shock. He knew the effect of the invisibility ray was strictly temporary. He dimly recalled from his studies that it generally lasted at least a half an hour before wearing off. Could he have allowed so much time to pass while he gingerly felt his way along? Or was the time element other than he remembered? He groaned a curse, if only he had paid closer attention to his classes in the Lesser Thaumaturgies!
There was no question about it, he was slowly becoming visible. The shadowy likeness of a huge hall was coming into being about him. He sprinted across the intersection of the corridors in order to gain the fullest possible advantage before coming to full visibility.
Then a harsh iron voice froze him cowering in his tracks. An amplified voice roared and echoed through the palace.
"The magician Temujin is missing from his cell, and the Earthling Kirin has somehow escaped, slaying the Lord Pangoy in his flight! All nobles and slaves are warned to watch for these escaped prisoners. The Earthling is not to be harmed, merely seized; but the magician Temujin is of no use to us and may be armed and dangerous. The fat man is to be shot down on sight, by order of the Queen!"
Temujin moaned an entreaty to several gods and waddled towards a tapestry-hung wall where he might be able to hide. Shot down on sight! Even as he quivered at the deadly flavor of those words, the entire rotunda sprang into full view and he looked down at his fat hands. They were firm and solid to the sight. He was no longer invisible...
And he heard the tramp of metal feet coming up the curving marble stair. He knew he could not reach the further wall in time. But he ran for it anyway...
And slipped and fell sprawling, just as the first robots came up the stair into the rotunda behind him.
Caola and Kirin had almost reached the luxurious cell wherein he and Doctor Temujin had been imprisoned hours or days before, when they heard the grim announcement that ran through every chamber of the giant citadel. Kirin's jaw tightened grimly.