Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  And his boyhood chums had jeered at his tales, admiring his ability as a liar but rudely expressing their opinions when he had earnestly maintained that he did dream it all, every night.

  So Henry had learned not to tell of his dream-life. He had kept that part of his life locked away, and even Emma had never heard of it.

  "But still, if a psychoanalyst could help me find out which is real," he thought desperately, "it'd be worth trying—"

  That afternoon when his work was finished, Henry found himself entering the offices of a Doctor Willis Thorn whom he had heard of as the best psychoalanlyst in the city. He had made an appointment by telephone.

  Doctor Thorn wis a solidly built man of forty, with the body of a football player, and calm, friendly eyes. He listened with quiet attention as Henry Stevens, slowly at first and then more eagerly, poured out his story.

  "And you say the dream continues logically, from night to night?" Doctor Thorn asked. "That's strange. I've never heard of a psychosis quite like that."

  "What I want to know is—which is real?" Henry blurted. "Is there any way in which you could tell me whether it's Thar or Earth that's real?"

  Doctor Thorn smiled quietly. "I'm not a figment of a dream, I assure you. You see me sitting here, quite real and solid. Too solid, I'm afraid—I've been putting on weight lately."

  Henry, puzzledly thoughtful, missed the pleasantry. "You seem real and solid," he admitted, "and so does' this office and everything else, to me. But then I, Henry Stevens, may only be a part of the dream myself—Khal Kan's dream."

  Doctor Thorn's brow wrinkled. "I see your point. It's logical enough, from a certain standpoint. But it's also logical that you and I and Earth are real, and that Khal Kan and his world are only an extraordinarily vivid dream your mind has developed as compensation for a monotonous life."

  "I don't know," Henry muttered. "When I'm Khai Kan, I'm pretty sure that Henry Stevens is just a dream. But I, Henry Stevens, am not so sure. Of course, Khal Kan isn't the kind of man to brood or doubt much about anything—he's a fighter and reckless adventurer."

  Doctor Thorn was definitely interested. "Look here, Mr. Stevens, suppose you write out a complete history of this dreamlife of yours—this life as Khal Kan—and bring it with you the next time. It may help me."

  Henry left the office, with his new hope on the wane. He didn't think the psychoanalyst could do much to solve his problem.

  After all, he thought depressedly as he drove homeward, there was hardly any way in which you could prove that you really existed. You felt you did exist, everyone around you was sure they did too, but there was no real proof that that whole existence was not just a dream.

  His mind came back to Khal Kan's present predicament. How was he going to escape from the drylanders? He brooded on that, through dinner.

  "Henry Stevens, you haven't been listening to one word!" his wife's voice aroused him.

  Emma's plump, good-natured face was a little exasperated as she peered across the table at him.

  "I declare, you're getting more dopey every day!" she told him snappily.

  "I'm just sleepy, I guess," Henry apologized. "I think I'll turn in."

  She shook her head. "You go to bed earlier every night. It's not eight o'clock yet."

  Henry finally was permitted to retire. He felt an apprehensive eagerness as he undressed. What was going to happen to Khal Kan?

  He stretched out and lay in the dark room, half dreading and half anticipating the coming of sleep. Finally the dark tide of drowsiness began to roll across his mind.

  He knew vaguely that he was falling asleep. He slipped into darkness. And, as always, the dream came at once. As always, he dreamed that he was awaking—

  Khal Kan awoke, in the dark, cold tent. His whole back was a throbbing pain, and his bound arms and legs were numb.

  He lay thinking a moment of his dream. How real it always seemed, the nightly dream in which he was a timid little man named Henry Stevens, on a queer, drab world called Earth! When he was dreaming—when he was the man Henry Stevens—he even thought that he, Khal Kan, was a dream!

  Dreams within dreams—but they meant nothing. Khal Kan had long ago quit worrying about his strange dream-life, The wise men of Jotan whom he had consulted had spoken doubtfully of witchcraft Their explanations had explained nothing. And life was too short, there were too many enemies to slay and girls to kiss and flagons to drink, to worry much about dreams.

  "But this is no dream, worse luck!" thought Khal Kan, testing his bonds. "The prince of Jotan, trussed up like a damned hyrk—"

  He stiffened. A shadow was moving toward him in the dark tent. It bent over him and there was a muffled flash of steel. Amazedly, Khal Kan felt the bonds of his wrists and ankles relax. They had been cut.

  The shadow sniggered. "What would you do without little Zoor to take care of you, Prince?"

  "Zoor?" Khal Kan's whisper was astonished. "How in the name of—"

  "Easily, Prince," sniggered Zoor. "I always carry a flat blade in the sole of my sandal. But it took me all night to get it out and cut myself free. It's almost dawn."

  The cold in the tent was piercing. Through a crack in the flap, Khal Kan could see the eastern sky beginning to pale a little. He could also hear the drylanders on guard out there, shuffling to keep warm.

  Khal Kan got to his feet while Zoor was freeing Brusul. Then the little man used his sliver of steel to slice a rip through the back wall of the tent. They three slipped out into the starry darkness.

  Khal Kan chuckled a little to himself as he remembered how his dream-self—the man Henry Stevens in that dream-world—had worried about his plight. As though there was anything worth worrying about in that.

  They did not stop for a whispered consultation until they were well away from the tent in which they had been kept. The whole camp of the drylanders was still, except for an occasional drunken warrior staggering between the dark tents, and the stamping of tethered horses not far away.

  "The horses are this way," muttered Brusul. "We can be over the Dragals before these swart-skinned devils know we're gone."

  "Wait!" commanded Khal Kan's whisper. "I'm not going without that girl. Golden Wings."

  "Hell take your obstinacy!" snarled Brusul. "Do you think you can steal the drylanders' princess right out of their camp? They'd chase us to the end of the world. Beside, what would you want with that little desert-cat who had you flogged raw?"

  Khal Kan uttered a low laugh. "She's the only wench I've ever seen who was more than a sweet armful for an idle hour. She's flame and steel and beauty—and by the sun, I'm taking her. You two get horses and wait by the edge of the camp yonder. I'll be along."

  He hastened away before they could voice the torrent of objections on their lips. He had taken Zoor's hiltless knife.

  Khal Kan made his way through the dark tents to the big pavilion of the dryland chief. He silently skirted its rear wall, stopping here and there to slash the wall and peer inside.

  Thus he discovered the compartment of the pavilion in which the girl slept. It had a guttering copper night-lamp whose flickering radiance fell on silken hangings and on a low mass of cushions on which she lay.

  Golden Wings' dark head was pillowed on her arm, her long black lashes slumbering on her cheek. Coolly, Khal Kan made an entrance. He delayed to cut strips from the silken hangings, and then approached her.

  His big hand whipped the silken gag around Golden Wings' mouth and tied it before she was half-awake. Her eyes raging as she recognized him, and her slim silken figure struggled in his grasp with wildcat fury.

  Khal Kan was rough and fast. He got the silken bonds around her hands and feet, and then drew a breath of relief.

  "Now we ride for Jotan, my sweet," he whispered mockingly to her as he picked up her helpless figure.

  Golden Wings' black eyes blazed into his own, and he laughed.

  He kissed her eyelids. "This will have to serve as proof of my affections until we can take
this damned gag off, my dear," he mocked.

  Her firm body writhed furiously in his grasp as he went out into the starry night. Silently, bearing the girl easily, he made his way through the sleeping camp.

  Stamping shadows loomed up at the camp edge, awaiting him. Brusul and Zoor had horses, and the little spy handed Khal Kan a stolen sword.

  "You have the girl!" Zoor sniggered. "Even I could not make a theft so daring—to steal the drylanders' princess out of their own camp!"

  "We haven't got her out yet, and it's far to Jotan," snarled Brusul. "Let's get out of here."

  Khal Kan vaulted into the saddle and drew Golden Wings' struggling silken figure across the saddle-bow. They walked their horses softly eastward till they were out of earshot of the camp, and then they spurred into a gallop.

  The cold dawn wind whistled past Khal Kan's face. Far ahead, the black bulk of the Dragals loomed against the paling sky.

  He took the gag from Golden Wings' mouth. In the growing light, the cold anger of the girl's face flared at him.

  "Dog of Jotan!" she panted. "You'll be staked out in the desert to die the sun-death, for this crime."

  "I didn't free your mouth for words, my dear," replied Khal Kan. "But for this—"

  Her lips writhed under his kiss. His laughter pealed bade on the wind as he straightened again in the saddle.

  Golden Wings sobbed with rage. "You'll not be killed at once," she promised breathlessly. "It will take time to think up a death appropriate for you. Even the sun-death would be too easy."

  "That's the way I like to hear a girl talk," applauded Khal Kan. "Hell take these wenches who are all softness and whimpers. We'll get along, my pet."

  They were still far from the first ridges of the Dragals when the crimson sun came up to light their way. Brusul turned his battered face back to stare across the ocher sands, and then swore and pointed to a remote, low wisp of dust back on the western horizon.

  "There they come! They're following our tracks, curse them!"

  "We can lose them when we reach the mountains," Khal Kan called easily. "Faster!"

  "You'll never reach the Dragals," taunted Golden Wings, eyes sparkling now. "My father's horses are swift, Jotan dogs!"

  They spurred on. The first low red ridges of the Dragals seemed tantalizingly far away. The sun was rising higher, and its blistering heat had already dispelled the coolness of dawn.

  The crimson orb hung almost directly overhead, and they were still hours from the ridges, when Zoor's pony tripped and went down. It rolled with a broken neck as the little man darted nimbly from the saddle.

  Khal Kan reined up and came riding back. The dust-cloud of their pursuers was ominously big and close.

  "Ride on!" Zoor cried, his wizened face unperturbed. "You can make the ridges without me."

  "We can't make them," Khal Kan denied coolly. "And it's not our way to separate in face of danger."

  He dismounted. Golden Wings was looking westward with exultation in her black eyes. "Did I not tell you I'd see you caught!" she cried.

  Khal Kan cut free her hands and feet. He reached up and set his lips against hers, bruisingly. Then he stepped back, releasing her.

  "You can ride back and meet your father's warriors with the glad news that we're here for the taking, my sweet," he told her.

  "You're letting her go?" yelled Brusul. "We could hold her hostage."

  "No," declared Khal Kan. "I'll not see her harmed in the fight."

  He laughed up at her, as she sat in the saddle looking down at him with wide, strangely bewildered eyes.

  "Too bad I couldn't get you to Jotan with me, my little desert-cat. "But you'll have the pleasure of seeing us killed. Tell your father's warriors to come with their swords out!"

  For a long moment, Golden Wings looked down at him. Then she set spur to the pony and galloped away to the oncoming dust-cloud.

  Khal Kan and his two comrades drew their swords and waited. And soon they saw the force of a hundred drylanders riding up to them. Bladomir was in the lead, his beard bristling. And Golden Wings rode beside him.

  "The little hell-cat wants to help kill us," growled Brusul. "You should have slit her throat."

  Khal Kan shrugged. "I'd liefer slit my own. Too bad we have to end in a skirmish like this, old friends. I dragged you into it."

  "Oh, it's all right, except that we won't be with the armies of Jotan when they go out to meet Egir and the Bunts," muttered Brusul.

  The drylanders were not charging. No sword was unsheathed as they came forward, though old Bladomir was frowning blackly. The desert chieftain halted his horse ten paces away, and spoke to Khal Kan in a roaring voice.

  "I ought to kill you all, Jotanians, for taking my daughter away with you. But we're a free people. Since she says she goes with you of her own free will, I'll not interfere."

  "Of her own free will?" gasped Brusul. "What in the sun's name—"

  Golden Wings had dismounted and came toward Khal Kan. Her dark eyes met him levelly. She did not speak, nor did he, as she took his hand.

  Bladomir laid a sword-blade across their clasped hands, and tossed a handful of the yellow desert sand upon it. Khal Kan felt his heart in his throat. It was the marriage rite of the drylanders.

  Zoor and Brusul were staring unbelievingly, the drylanders sadly. But Golden Wings' red lips were sweet fire under his mouth.

  "You said that for each lash-stroke last night, I'd pay a hundred kisses," she whispered. "That will take long—my lord."

  He looked earnestly into the brooding sweetness of her face. "No deceptions between us, my little sand-cat!" he said. "When I freed you and let you go to your father, I was gambling that you'd come back—like this."

  For a moment her eyes flared surprise and anger. And then she laughed. "No deceptions, my lord! Last night, in my father's pavilion, I knew you were the mate I'd long awaited. But—I thought the lashing would teach you to value me the more!"

  Bladomir had mounted his horse. The stoical old desert chieftain and his men called their farewells, and then rode back westward.

  They had left horse and sword for Golden Wings. She rode knee to knee with Khal Kan as they spurred up the sloping sands toward the first red ridges of the Dragals.

  Dusk came upon them hours later as they climbed the steep pass toward the highest ridge of the range. One of the pink moons was up and the other was rising. The desert was a vague unreality far behind and below.

  "Look back and you can see the campfires of your people," he told the girl.

  Her dark head did not turn. "My people are ahead now, in Jotan."

  They topped the ridge. A yell of horror burst from Brusul.

  "The Bunts are in Galoon! Hell take the green devils—they've marched leagues north in the last two days!"

  Khal Kan's fierce rage choked him as he too saw. Far, far to the east beneath the rosy moons, the lowland plain below the Dragals stretched out to the silvery immensity of the Zambrian Sea.

  Down there to the right, on the coast, should have shone the bright lights of the city Galoon, southern most port of Jotanland.

  But instead the city was scarred by hideous red fires, that smoldered through the night like baleful, unwinking eyes.

  "Egir's led the green men farther north than I dreamed!'" Khal Kan muttered. "Oh, damn that traitor! If I had my sword at his throat—"

  "We'd best ride hard for Jotan before we're cut off," Zoor cried.

  They rode north along the ridges, until the red fires of burning Galoon receded from sight. Then they moved down the western slopes of the mountains, and galloped on north along the easier coast road.

  Galloping under the rosy moons, Khal Kan pointed far along the shore to a yellow beacon-fire atop the lighthouse tower outside Jotan.

  The square black towers of Jotan loomed sheer on the edge of the silver sea, surrounded by the high black wall which had only two openings—a big water-gate on the sea side, and a smaller gate on the other. The rosy moonlight glinted o
ff the arms of sentries posted thick on the wall, and a sharp challenge was flung down as Khal Kan rode up to the closed gate.

  Joyful cries greeted the disclosure of his identity. The gates ground slowly open, and he and Golden Wings galloped in with Brusul and Zoor. Khal Kan led the way through the black-paved stone streets of Jotan to the low, brooding mass of the palace.

  When, with Golden Wings' hand in his, he hurried into the great domed, torchlit marble Hall of the Kings, he found his father awaiting him.

  Kan Abul's iron-hard face seemed even grimmer than usual.

  "The Bunts—" Khal Kan began, but the king finished for him.

  "I know—the green men have captured and sacked Galoon, led by my traitorous brother. We've been gathering our forces. Tomorrow we march south to attack—it's good you*re in time to join us. But who's this?"

  Khal Kan grinned. "I found no Bunts over the Dragais, but I did find a princess for Jotan. They call her Golden Wings—Bladomir's daughter."

  Kan Abul grunted. "A dryland princess? Well, you've made a bad bargain, girl—this son of mine's an empty-skulled rascal. And tomorrow he goes south with us to battle."

  "And I go with him!" declared Golden Wings. "Do you think I'm one of your Jotan girls that cannot ride or fight?"

  Khal Kin laughed. "We'll argue that the morrow."

  Later that night, in his great chamber of seaward windows, with Golden Wings sleeping in his arms, Khal Kan also slept—

  Henry Stevens brooded as he sat waiting in the office of the psychoanalyst, the next afternoon. Things couldn't go on this way! He'd been reprimanded twice this day by Carson for neglect of his work.

  Since he'd awakened this morning, the danger to Jotan had been obsessing his thoughts.

  It was queer, but he had had more time to reflect upon the peril than had Khal Kan himself in the dream.

  "You can go in now, Mr. Stevens," smiled the receptionist.

  Doctor Thorn's alert young eyes caught the haggardness of Henry's face but he was casual as he pushed cigarettes across the desk.