Tower Of The Medusa

by Lin Carter

  "The last recordings show that he surprised a slave girl in his quarters. As he was questioning her, the Earthling awoke and they fought. The Earthling, Kirin, seems to have slain Pangoy..."

  "I can read the telemetry, fool," Zarlak grated. He threw the tapes from him with a soundless snarl. Pangoy had been invaluable. The Nexian had never known that telepathic receptors had been surgically implanted in his brain-tissue before he had ever reached the planet Zangrimar. The Mind Wizard never knew he was an involuntary spy for Zarlak, Lord of Pelizon. Now his involuntary servitude was ended, and still Zarlak did not have the secret of the Iron Tower.

  The Dwarf, Vulkaar, edged nearer.

  "What now, Lord?" he whispered. The cold glare of Zarlak brooded on the gloom.

  "Now the Earthling will come here, of course," he said. "If he is able to escape the clutches of the Witch Queen alive, and gain his ship."

  "Will he be able to do so? The Witch is powerful..." the Dwarf, Vulkaar, said dubiously.

  "So was Pangoy," said Zarlak. "His mastery of the mental forces was extraordinary--which is why the Mind Wizards of Nex dispatched him to Zangrimar in the first place. Only one with his power could destroy Azeera before she plunged half a galaxy in war." An invisible smile crawled across the masked lips of Zarlak. "The fool succumbed to her wiles despite his powers. He fell hopelessly in love with the Witch Queen... and she accepted him into her service, knowing what a weapon his mental powers would be. She never knew, nor did he, that his own brain broadcast to my receptors everything he saw or heard."

  Vulkaar cackled a peal of gloating laughter.

  "That love was your doing, Master!"

  "Yes." Zarlak smiled. "It was a master-stroke. I was a novice in the Mind Schools of Nex in those days... when I learned Pangoy had been selected for the mission, I lured him to my cell and implanted the telepathic receptors within his brain. And hypnotized him so that he would lust for the Witch and fall under her spell. I took a chance, hoping that Azeera was still enough of a woman to be flattered by his adoration and accept his service, rather than having him slain. All went well, but now the Earthling has somehow overcome even a Mind Wizard..."

  "Then you think this Kirin will escape from Zangrimar?" Vulkaar asked. The Master nodded.

  "If he was strong enough to destroy the Nexian, he has a chance of eluding the grasp of the Witch Queen. And if he does, he will doubtless come to Pelizon."

  The sallow Dwarf in the fantastic steel armor mused thoughtfully on this. The Death Dwarves of Pelizon guarded the Iron Tower with an age-old fanaticism; no intruder could be permitted into the Tower; all were slain. But the Veiled One had lured Vulkaar from his vows and won his obedience. The Dwarf's heart was a blazing crucible of greed and lust; by playing subtly on his greed, Zarlak had bound him to his service and shared the secret of his intentions with him. Vulkaar proved a precious ally. Together they were consumed with but a single wish: to rape the Iron Tower of its sacred treasure, the Medusa, and with the power of the Demon's Heart, to gain mastery of many worlds. Vulkaar slavered at the thought: the Master had promised him gold... and women... Earthling women!

  "What shall we do if he comes here, Master?"

  "We shall lay a little trap and catch him in our snare," the Lord of Pelizon replied.

  "Before he reaches the Tower?"

  The master laughed. His voice dropped to a soft, silken purr:

  "No, you fool. After he has stolen the Medusa and is leaving the Tower!"

  The cunning in his voice delighted Vulkaar. The little Death Dwarf capered and leaped about the gloom-shrouded chamber, crowing with glee. And the harsh laughter of the Veiled One rose to fill the darkness of the stone room with ringing peals of demoniac mirth...

  "I don't like this, lad. I don't like it one bit!" old Temujin puffed, toiling along behind Kirin and the girl. The grey cindery plain was rough underfoot, and the old Magician's sandals kept sinking into the harsh crystals. Above the sky was dark and empty, filled with drifting vapors.

  Kirin didn't like it either. It was odd. He had been told the Death Dwarves guarded the lands about the Iron Tower with great care and cunning. Where, then, were they?

  Kirin and his companions had broken out of the Interplenum in a distant orbit around the parent star of Pelizon world. They crept into the system with stealth, their ship carefully shielded against detection. The planet Pelizon lay beneath their keel, a dull grey sphere of wrinkled stone, whose barren shores were washed by dark and nameless seas. The daylight terminator cut across the bleak plateaus as they drifted down towards it on tiny bursts of power from the steering jets.

  No patrols. No planet-based radar stations. Nothing.

  It was more than strange, it was alarming.

  They landed with great secrecy on the night side. Still no alarms. Stratosphere reconnaissance showed no camp-fires, no tribal towns, no gatherings. The Iron Tower was alone and unguarded on its bleak stony plateau under the mist-robed skies. Curious...

  Warily they disembarked, to gain the base of the Tower on foot. Either their stealth and secrecy had eluded the attention of the Death Dwarves, or the Tower was not kept under as strict and close a system of surveillance as they had supposed...

  Caola stifled a gasp and clutched Kirin's arm, pointing wordlessly.

  At that moment, the skies cleared.

  The curtain of vapor was torn aside by cold winds. The icy glitter of the stars blazed down, and the lambent glory of the moons, bathing the barren stone in ashen light.

  Ahead, the Iron Tower thrust against the naked heavens.

  Kirin sucked in his breath and chewed on his lip, studying the fantastic structure intently.

  It was not as tall as he had expected. The Earthling was not exactly sure what he had expected: some splendid, spidery, incredibly tall structure, perhaps. But he had been wrong.

  The Tower was a ziggurat, a step-pyramid, built in nine levels. Low and squat and solid, it loomed ahead of them like a man-made mountain, thrusting up out of the severe flatness of the rocky plateau.

  It was a grim, prison-like structure. It looked like a fortress, all harsh angles and blocky corners. In the pallid wash of moonfire that lay upon it, the Tower did not look as if it were sheathed in iron. It had not the gloss, the gleam, of metal. Instead it was raised from some porous, lava-like stone, grey and dense and rough-surfaced.

  It lifted above the plain, level upon level, ascending into the night. Somehow it looked ominous. Sinister. A weird aura of menace clung about the ziggurat. It radiated a clammy feeling of fear!

  They stood, the three of them, staring up at the thing that squatted there amidst the barren plain. There was an atmosphere of alienage about the stone building--something they could not explain. But it was somehow obvious that no human hands had built that looming structure, although none of them could have put into words exactly why they felt thus.

  They stared at the Tower. Kirin with a narrowed, measuring gaze, his mouth twisted into an ironic half-smile; Caola, who clung to his arm, lifted her pale face to the Tower, and her features were haunted with a shadow of foreboding and fear; and as for the doctor, he goggled at it with open mouth.

  "I say again, lad, I don't like this--it's too quiet, I smell a trap!" he hissed.

  Kirin shrugged off the emotion of dread and awe that had fallen upon him since his first sight of the Tower.

  "Forget it. Come on--and keep your eyes open, both of you!"

  They continued forward. From time to time, Kirin glanced in a puzzled fashion at his left wrist. There a leather band was strapped to his arm. Dials glowed phosphorescently.

  The miniature detector was very simple: it was heat-sensitive along a monodirectional beam, and delicate enough to register any warm-blooded lifeform larger than a cat. From time to time he swept the surrounding plain with the beam: it registered nothing. The Tower was unguarded.

  Unguarded by living things, at least.

  They plodded on. The nearer they came to the Tower, the va
ster it became. At first sight it had seemed of no particular consequence, a low, squat structure like a citadel or a tomb. Now, as they drew nearer, the true size and proportions of the Tower dawned on them. It was colossal. The longer they moved towards it, the larger it seemed. At last, after almost an hour, they stood before the base of it, and could see the fortress in true perspective.

  It was somewhat more than half a mile long, and almost half a mile high. It was the largest single building Kirin had ever seen or heard of; even the central citadel of Azeera's city back on Zangrimar would have been dwarfed beside it, and that was not one building, but many linked together.

  Truly, only a god could have built this thing, he thought, staring up at it.

  The ultimate marvel was that it was not built in blocks of stone: it was all of one piece! As for the grey, rough, porous rock whereof it was fashioned, Kirin had never seen such stone before. He ran his palm over it. It seemed as dense and tough as metal. All of his strength could not dislodge a crumb of the rough surface.

  It seemed to the eye to be fire-blasted. Terrific flames had poured over it once, aeons ago. The surface was roiled and pocked, like slag, like volcanic lava.

  Had the god molded it all at once out of liquid stone?

  A portal yawned blackly before them.

  There were no guards. No alarm posts or signal-rays. Again he swept the area with his heat-detector. Nothing. It made him feel tense and wary. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. There should have been guards...

  "I'm going in," he grunted.

  The girl caught his arm. "Do you think you should?"

  "Sure. I've committed the charts to memory. I know every foot of the passage. And I'd better get going now, before the Death Dwarves show up. We seem to have caught them on their night off!" His lips twisted in a faint grin at the sickly jest. He did not feel very humorous, standing there at the black mouth of the passage, in the very shadow of the inhuman stone thing that was half as old as the Universe itself. In fact, he felt scared, but he throttled it down, crushed it. And he knew that the longer he stood here, the worse it would get. Better get inside now while he still had some nerve left.

  Temujin plucked at his cloak.

  "Lad... lad! Let's forget it... to Chaos with the Medusa, and to Chaos with the high and holy plans of Trevelon! Let's get away from here, while we've still got a whole skin and a sane mind, the three of us! Let's get off this cursed world of shadows and brooding menace."

  He shook his head.

  "No, Doc--though you tempt me, no, I'm going to do it. At least, I'm going to try it. No thief in history ever succeeded in stealing the Medusa. Maybe I can break that record..."

  And he turned on his heel and went into the Iron Tower. He did not look back at them. In an instant the darkness had swallowed him.

  "Do you think he will do it?" Caola asked. The old Magician shrugged.

  "The Gods know, lass. But if anybody can, Kirin's the lad to do the job," he said, heaving a heavy sigh.

  "And what are we supposed to do--just wait here for him to come out again?" the girl asked, casting an anxious look about her at the grim landscape, the moonwashed mountain of stone, and the gloomy sky wherein stars burned with a far icy glitter. She shivered. "I don't like it; I feel... as if someone is watching me!"

  Old Temujin patted her hand. "Nonsense, lass! Relax; don't worry. The lad will be all right, I promise you. And there is nothing for us to do but wait. The Gods only know how long it will take Kirin to make his way through the depths of that accursed Tower to the treasure-chamber. We must be patient and wait for his return."

  A cold, mocking voice spoke from behind them.

  "We shall wait for him together," said Zarlak. Then, to the Death Dwarves who companioned him: "Seize them!"

  14. MAGIC MAZE

  Kirin went forward in utter darkness. The passage ran straight for a time, deep into the god-made mountain of iron-hard stone. The portal through which he had come dwindled behind him, a dim rectangle of faint light. Then the passage took a sharp turn to the right, and the distant gateway vanished. He went forward into unbroken gloom.

  Now that he was actually within the Iron Tower, his dread and awe vanished. He felt fully alert, poised, cool. Every sense was honed to razor-sharpness. His nerves were steady, his pulse-beat was calm. He felt keyed up to maximum power; totally in command of himself and ready for anything.

  From his belt-pouch he drew forth a curious device which he strapped to his brow. From brackets attached to the strap two black discs snapped down in front of his eyes. Protruding from the strap in the center of his forehead was a metal tube. From this a pulsating beam of force throbbed. It bathed space in front of him, and when the pulsations of force encountered a solid barrier, then they reflected back. The black discs in front of his eyes were rendered sensitive to the force beam. They pictured a three-dimensional image of the obstacles in front of him. It was like a 3D version of radar.

  He could have used a simple light-beam: others in the past who had ventured within the tomb-like Tower may have used lights. That would account for the dry and brittle bones that crunched under his feet.

  Above him, in niches along the walls of the passage, silver birds with cruel hooked beaks sat motionless. Life had been infused into eternal metal. But they slept: only visible light would awaken the rapacious robot birds, sending them forth to rend and slay. They did not react to the invisible pulsations of the force-probe. Which is why he wore the headdress mechanism instead of simply carrying a torch or light-tube.

  Now he came to the first of the obstacles. Huge swinging blades, like meat-cleavers, swung down from the roof, and up from grooves in the floor, and out of the walls. They went snickering past, slashing at empty air in an eternal dance of death. He stood observing them, remembering the data given in the documents from Trevelon, memorizing the rhythm of their strokes. Then he sprang amidst the blades as they went hissing past. He maneuvered between them and through them, but it was chancy in the extreme. The force-probe was an alternative to sight, but not really a substitute. Half blinded, he moved among the flying knives. The sweat sprang out over his forehead. It trickled down his sides under his tunic. His inner thighs were clammy with perspiration.

  Then he was through the area of the invisible scythes and he stood on safe ground once again. For a time he simply stood there until he stopped trembling; stood there breathing deeply, feeling the tension drain out of him like water draining from a squeezed sponge, recovering his self-control. He had passed the phototropic birds and the flying knives safely, but even deadlier traps lay before him.

  When his self-control was complete, he went forward again, but slowly, cautiously, counting the footsteps.

  Finally he came to an area of flat stone. He inched forward with extreme caution, slipping a harness from his pouch. He strapped curious gloves and bootlets to his hands and feet. Cups of tough plastic were fastened to the palms of the gloves and to the toes of the bootlets. He thrust his palms against the left wall of the passage, high up. The suction cups adhered. He levered himself up above the floor and stuck the toe-cups against the wall. Then, slowly and painfully, he inched his way along the wall of the passage, level with but a couple of feet above the floor.

  For the floor here was an illusion. It was not solid rock, although it resembled it. It would have borne his weight for a few yards: thereafter it became a deadly quasi-solid state of matter like quicksand. It would have sucked him down greedily to a horrible death.

  He moved across the face of the wall like a human fly.

  It was slow going. In no time at all, the muscles of his arms and shoulders and thighs began to ache abominably. He gritted his teeth and struggled on.

  After an eternity he passed the area of the liquid stone and was able to come down to the solid floor again. He felt exhausted. But he could not rest yet. Greater tasks lay ahead of him and he must press on before his strength failed.

  He came to a region where the floor
was covered with a raised design. Eight inches tall, a wandering maze of narrow stonework scrawled over the flooring. The edges of this miniature maze were sharp as razors and hard as diamond.

  He must go forward, threading through the maze, avoiding contact with the knife-like edges. Even the tough plastic of his boots could not protect him from the savage keenness of the blade-edged maze. Nor could he continue using the suction harness on the walls, unless he were a superman. For the knife-maze extended for three hundred yards and his muscles could not endure the torment of wall-walking for such a distance.

  But the maze could be traversed, and safely, if one kept cool and kept one's nerve. To do it in utter darkness was agony. But he inched his way forward slowly, step by step, using the force-probe to read the ground ahead of him, holding in his mind a clear picture of the one safe route through the maze. He could do it. He knew he could do it. And he did.

  It took two hours of excruciating effort and patience. But he came through it safely, although his nerves were frayed clear to the bone.

  He rested for a time, and took nourishment from the concentrated rations he carried with him, washed down with a healthy draught of strong brandy.

  Then, when he felt rested and restored, he went forward again into the blackness deep within the heart of the Iron Tower...

  Seven more tests he passed, each more difficult and ingenious than the last. Some of them took every ounce of strength and limberness in his body; others demanded a clear head and a steady nerve. He only managed to endure the torment because he knew what was coming and how to surmount it. It would have been impossible to penetrate the maze safely not knowing the way.

  There was a forest of howling pillars through which he wove a narrow and perilous path. Carven mouths roared at him and empty black eye-pits glared with inanimate hate...

  There was a knife-thin bridge that arched across a chasm of living flames whose curling tendrils clutched and lashed at his limbs...