Dawn of Flame

by Stanley G. Weinbaum

  "Oh, I won't," said Hull wearily. "I won't fight women, nor betray even Black Margot to death."

  But Vail's blue eyes pleaded. "That won't be breaking your word, Hull. Please. It isn't betraying a woman. She's a sorceress. She's evil. Please, Hull."

  Bitterly he yielded. "I'll try, then." He frowned gloomily. "She saved my life, and — Well, which room is hers?"

  "My father's. Mine is the western chamber, which she took for her — her maid," Vail's eyes misted at the indignity of it. "We," she said, "are left to sleep in the kitchen."

  An hour later, having eaten, he walked somberly home with Vail while Enoch slipped away toward the hills. There were tents in the dooryard, and lights glowed in every window, and before the door stood two dark Empire men who passed the girl readily enough, but halted Hull with small ceremony. Vail cast him a wistful backward glance as she disappeared toward the rear, and he submitted grimly to the questioning of the guards.

  "On what business?"

  "To see the Princess Margaret."

  "Are you Hull Tarvish?"

  "Yes."

  One of the men stepped to his side and ran exploratory hands about his body. "Orders of Her Highness," he explained gruffly.

  Hull smiled. The Princess had not trusted his word too implicitly. In a moment the fellow had finished his search and swung the door open.

  Hull entered. He had never seen the interior of the house, and for a moment its splendor dazzled him. Carved ancient furniture, woven carpets, intricately worked standards for the oil lamps, and even — for an instant he failed to comprehend it — a full-length mirror of ancient workmanship wherein his own image faced him. Until now he had seen only bits and fragments of mirrors.

  To his left a guard blocked an open door whence voices issued. Old Marcus Ormiston's voice. "But I'll pay for it. I'll buy it with all I have." His tones were wheedling.

  "No." Cool finality in the voice of Joaquin Smith. "Long ago I swore to Martin Sair never to grant immortality to any who have not proved themselves worthy." A note of sarcasm edged his voice. "Go prove yourself deserving of it, old man, in the few years left to you."

  Hull sniffed contemptuously. There seemed something debased in the old man's whining before his conqueror. "The Princess Margaret?" he asked, and followed the guard's gesture.

  Upstairs was a dimly lit hall where another guard stood silently. Hull repeated his query, but in place of an answer came the liquid tones of Margaret herself. "Let him come in, Corlin."

  A screen within the door blocked sight of the room. Hull circled it, steeling himself against the memory of that soul-burning loveliness he remembered. But his defense was shattered by the shock that awaited him.

  The screen, indeed, shielded the Princess from the sight of the guard in the hall, but not from Hull's eyes. He stared utterly appalled at the sight of her lying in complete indifference in a great tub of water, while a fat woman scrubbed assiduously at her bare body. He could not avoid a single glimpse of her exquisite form, then he turned and stared deliberately from the east windows, knowing that he was furiously crimson even to his shoulders.

  "Oh, sit down!" she said contemptuously. "This will be over in a moment."

  He kept his eyes averted while water splashed and a towel whisked sibilantly. When he heard her footsteps beside him he glanced up tentatively, still fearful of what he might see, but she was covered now in a full robe of shiny black and gold that made her seem taller, though its filmy delicacy by no means concealed what was beneath. Instead of the cothurns she wore when on the march, she had slipped her feet into tiny high-heeled sandals that were reminiscent of the footgear he had seen in ancient pictures. The black robe and her demure coif of short ebony hair gave her an appearance of almost nunlike purity, save for the green hell-fires that danced in her eyes.

  In his heart Hull cursed that false aura of innocence, for he felt again the fascination against which he had steeled himself.

  "So," she said. "You may sit down again. I do not demand court etiquette in the field." She sat opposite, and produced a black cigarette, lighting it at the chimney of the lamp on the table. Hull stared; not that he was unaccustomed to seeing women smoke, for every mountainy woman had her pipe, and every cottage its tobacco patch, but cigarettes were new to him.

  "Now," she said with a faintly ironic smile, "tell me what they say of me here."

  "They call you witch."

  "And do they hate me?"

  "Hate you?" he echoed thoughtfully. "At least they will fight you and the Master to the last feather on the last arrow."

  "Of course. The young men will fight — except those that Joaquin has bought with the eldarch's lands — because they know that once within the Empire, fighting is no more to be had. No more joyous, thrilling little wars between the cities, no more boasting and parading before the pretty provincial girls." She paused. "And you, Hull Tarvish — what do you think of me?"

  "I call you witch for other reasons."

  "Other reasons?"

  "There is no magic," said Hull, echoing the words of Old Einar in Selui. "There is only knowledge."

  The Princess looked narrowly at him. "A wise thought for one of you," she murmured, and then, "You came weaponless."

  "I keep my word."

  "You owe me that. I spared your life."

  "And I," declared Hull defiantly, "spared yours. I could have sped an arrow through that white throat of yours, there on the church roof. I aimed one."

  She smiled. "What held you?"

  "I do not fight women." He winced as he thought of what mission he was on, for it belied his words.

  "Tell me," she said, "was that the eldarch's pretty daughter who cried so piteously after you there before the church?"

  "Yes."

  "And do you love her?"

  "Yes." This was the opening he had sought, but it came bitterly now, facing her. He took the opportunity grimly. "I should like to ask one favor."

  "Ask it."

  "I should like to see" — lies were not in him but this was no lie — "the chamber that was to have been our bridal room. The west chamber." That might be — should be — truth.

  The Princess laughed disdainfully. "Go see it then."

  For a moment he feared, or hoped, perhaps, that she was going to let him go alone. Then she rose and followed him to the hall, and to the door of the west chamber.

  Seven. BETRAYAL

  Hull paused at the door of the west chamber to permit the Princess to enter. For the merest fraction of a second her glorious green eyes flashed speculatively to his face, then she stepped back. "You first, Weed," she commanded.

  He did not hesitate. He turned and strode into the room, hoping that the Harrier riflemen, if indeed they lurked in the copse, might recognize his mighty figure in time to stay their eager trigger fingers. His scalp prickled as he moved steadily across the window, but nothing happened.

  Behind him the Princess laughed softly. "I have lived too long in the aura of plot and counterplot in N'Orleans," she said. "I mistrust you without cause, honest Hull Tarvish."

  Her words tortured him. He turned to see her black robe mold itself to her body as she moved, and, as sometimes happens in moments of stress, he caught an instantaneous picture of her with his senses so quickened that it seemed as if she, himself, and the world were frozen into immobility. He remembered her forever as she was then, with her limbs in the act of striding, her green eyes soft in the lamplight, and her perfect lips in a smile that had a coloring of wistfulness. Witch and devil she might be, but she looked like a dark-haired angel, and in that moment his spirit revolted.

  "No!" he bellowed, and sprang toward her, striking her slim shoulders with both hands in a thrust that sent her staggering back into the hallway, there to sit hard and suddenly on the floor beside the amazed guard.

  She sprang up instantly, and there was nothing angelic now in 'her face. "You — hurt me!" she hissed. "Me! Now, I'll — " She snatched the guard's weapon from his belt,
thrust it full at Hull's chest, and sent the blue beam humming upon him.

  It was pain far worse than that at Eaglefoot Flow. He bore it stolidly, grinding into silence the groan that rose in his throat, and in a moment she flicked it off and slapped it angrily into the guard's holster. "Treachery again!" she said. "I won't kill you, Hull Tarvish. I know a better way." She whirled toward the stair-well. "Lebeau!" she called. "Lebeau! There's — " She glanced sharply at Hull, and continued, "Il y a des tirailleurs dans le bois. Je vais les tireer en avant!" It was the French of N'Orleans, as incomprehensible to Hull as Aramaic.

  She spun back. "Sora!" she snapped, and then, as the fat woman appeared, "Never mind. You're far too heavy." Then back to Hull. "I've a mind," she blazed, "to strip the Weed clothes from the eldarch's daughter and send her marching across the window!"

  He was utterly appalled. "She — she was in town!" he gasped, then fell silent at the sound of feet below.

  "Well, there's no time," she retorted. "So, if I must — " She strode steadily into the west chamber, paused a moment, and then stepped deliberately in front of the window!

  Hull was aghast. He watched her stand so that the lamplight must have cast her perfect silhouette full on the pane, stand tense and motionless for the fraction of a breath, and then leap back so sharply that her robe billowed away from her body.

  She had timed it to perfection. Two shots crashed almost together, and the glass shattered. And then, out in the night, a dozen beams crisscrossed, and, thin and clear in the silence after the shots, a yell of mortal anguish drifted up, and another, and a third.

  "There are snipers in the copse. I'll draw them out!"

  The Princess Margaret smiled in malice, and licked a crimson drop from a finger gashed by flying glass. "Your treachery reacts," she said in the tones of a sneer. "Instead of my betrayal, you have betrayed your own men."

  "I need no accusation from you," he said gloomily. "I am my own accuser, and my own judge. Yes, and my own executioner as well. I will not live a traitor."

  She raised her dainty eyebrows, and blew a puff of grey smoke from the cigarette still in her hand. "So strong Hull Tarvish will die a suicide," she remarked indifferently. "I had intended to kill you now. Should I leave you to be your own victim?"

  He shrugged. "What matter to me?"

  "Well," she said musingly, "you're rather more entertaining than I had expected. You're strong, you're stubborn, and you're dangerous. I give you the right to do what you wish with your own life, but" — her green eyes flickered mockingly — "if I were Hull Tarvish, I should live on the chance of justifying myself. You can wipe out the disgrace of your weakness by an equal courage. You can sell your life in your own cause, and who knows? — perhaps for Joaquin's — or mine!"

  He chose to ignore the mockery in her voice. "Perhaps," he said grimly, "I will."

  "Why, then, did you weaken, Hull Tarvish? You might have had my life."

  "I do not fight women," he said despondently. "I looked at you — and turned weak." A question formed in his mind. "But why did you risk your life before the window? You could have had fifty woods runners scour the copse. That was brave, but unnecessary."

  She smiled, but there was a shrewd narrowness in her eyes. "Because so many of these villages are built above the underground ways of the Ancients — the subways, the sewers. How did I know but that your assassins might slip into some burrow and escape? It was necessary to lure them into disclosure."

  Hull shadowed the gleam that shot into his own eyes. He remembered suddenly the ancient sewer in which the child Vail had wandered, whose entrance was hidden by blackberry bushes. Then the Empire men were unaware of it! He visioned the Harriers creeping through it with bow and sword — yes, and rifle, now that the spell was off the valley — springing suddenly into the center of the camp, finding the Master's army, sleeping, disorganized, unwary. What a plan for a surprise attack!

  "Your Highness," he said grimly, "I think of suicide no more, and unless you kill me now, I will be a bitter enemy to your Empire army."

  "Perhaps less bitter than you think," she said softly. "See, Hull, the only three that know of your weakness are dead. No one can name you traitor or weakling."

  "But I can," he returned somberly. "And you."

  "Not I, Hull," she murmured. "I never blame a man who weakens because of me — there have been many. Men as strong as you, Hull, and some that the world still calls great." She turned toward her own chamber. "Come in here," she said in altered tones. "I will have some wine. Sora!" As the fat woman padded off, she took another cigarette and lit it above the lamp, wrinkling her dainty nose distastefully at the night-flying insects that circled it.

  "What a place!" she snapped impatiently.

  "It is the finest house I have ever seen," said Hull stolidly.

  She laughed. "It's a hovel. I sigh for the day we return to N'Orleans, where windows are screened, where water flows hot at will, where lights do not flicker as yellow oil lamps nor send heat to stifle one. Would you like to see the Great City, Hull?"

  "You know I would."

  "What if I say you may?"

  "What could keep me from it if I go in peace?"

  She shrugged. "Oh, you can visit N'Orleans, of course, but suppose I offered you the chance to go as the — the guest, we'll say, of the Princess Margaret. What would you give for that privilege?"

  Was she mocking him again? "What would you ask for it?" he rejoined guardedly.

  "Oh, your allegiance, perhaps. Or perhaps the betrayal of your little band of Harriers, who will be the devil's own nuisance to stamp out of these hills."

  He looked up startled that she knew the name. "The Harriers? How?"

  She smiled. "We have friends among the Ormiston men. Friends bought with land," she added contemptuously. "But what of my offer, Hull?"

  He scowled. "You say as your guest. What am I to understand by that?"

  She leaned across the table, her exquisite green eyes on his, her hair flaming blue-black, her perfect lips in a faint smile. "What you please, Hull. Whatever you please."

  Anger was rising. "Do you mean," he asked huskily, "that you'd do that for so small a thing as the destruction of a little enemy band? You, with the whole Empire at your back?"

  She nodded. "It saves trouble, doesn't it?"

  "And honesty, virtue, honor, mean as little to you as that? Is this one of your usual means of conquest? Do you ordinarily sell your — your favors for —?"

  "Not ordinarily," she interrupted coolly. "First I must like my co-partner in the trade. You, Hull — I like those vast muscles of yours, and your stubborn courage, and your slow, clear mind. You are not a great man, Hull, for your mind has not the cold fire of genius, but you are a strong one, and I like you for it."

  "Like me!" he roared, starting up in his chair. "Yet you think I'll trade what honor's left me for — that! You think I'll betray my cause! You think — Well, you're wrong, that's all. You're wrong!"

  She shook her head, smiling. "No. I wasn't wrong, for I thought you wouldn't."

  "Oh, you did!" he snarled. "Then what if I'd accepted? What would you have done then?"

  "What I promised." She laughed at his angry, incredulous face. "Don't look so shocked, Hull. I'm not little Vail Ormiston. I'm the Princess Margaret of N'Orleans, called Margaret the Divine by those who love me, and by those who hate me called — Well, you must know what my enemies call me."

  "I do!" he blazed. "Black Margot, I do!"

  "Black Margot!" she echoed smiling. "Yes, so called because a poet once amused me, and because there was once a very ancient, very great French poet named FranЌois Villon, who loved a harlot called Black Margot." She sighed. "But my poet was no Villon; already his works are nearly forgotten."

  "A good name!" he rasped. "A good name for you!"

  "Doubtless. But you fail to understand, Hull. I'm an Immortal. My years are three times yours. Would you have me follow the standards of death-bound Vail Ormiston?"

 
; "Yes! By what right are you superior to all standards?"

  Her lips had ceased to smile, and her deep green eyes turned wistful. "By the right that I can act in no other way, Hull," she said softly. A tinge of emotion quavered in her voice. "Immortality!" she whispered. "Year after year after year of sameness, tramping up and down the world on conquest! What do I care for conquest? I have no sense of destiny like Joaquin, who sees before him Empire — Empire — Empire, ever larger, ever growing. What's Empire to me? And year by year I grow bored until fighting, killing, danger, and love are all that keep me breathing!"

  His anger had drained away. He was staring at her aghast, appalled.

  "And then they fail me!" she murmured. "When killing palls and love grows stale, what's left? Did I say love? How can there be love for me when I know that if I love a man, it will be only to watch him age and turn wrinkled, weak, and flabby? And when I beg Joaquin for immortality for him, he flaunts before me that promise of his to Martin Sair, to grant it only to those already proved worthy. By the time a man's worthy he's old." She went on tensely, "I tell you, Hull, that I'm so friendless and alone that I envy you death-bound ones! Yes, and one of these days I'll join you!"

  He gulped. "My God!" he muttered. "Better for you if you'd stayed in your native mountains with friends, home, husband, and children."

  "Children!" she echoed, her eyes misting with tears. "Immortals can't have children. They're sterile; they should be nothing but brains like Joaquin and Martin Sair, not beings with feelings — like me. Sometimes I curse Martin Sair and his hard rays. I don't want immortality; I want life!"

  Hull found his mind in a whirl. The impossible beauty of the girl he faced, her green eyes now soft and moist and unhappy, her lips quivering, the glisten of a tear on her cheek — these things tore at him so powerfully that he scarcely knew his own allegiance. "God!" he whispered. "I'm sorry!"

  "And you, Hull — will you help me — a little?"