Sea Kings of Mars and Otherworldly Stories

by Leigh Brackett

  Like all the rest the girl was paying more attention to Ywain than she was to Carse. He realized somewhat bitterly that the whole crowd had gathered less to see the unknown barbarian who had done it all than to see the daughter of Garach of Sark walking in chains.

  The red-haired Khond remembered his manners enough to make the sign of peace and say, "I am Rold of Khondor. We, the Sea Kings, make you welcome." Carse responded but saw that already he was half forgotten in the man's savage pleasure at the plight of his arch-enemy.

  They had much to say to each other, Ywain and the Sea Kings.

  Carse looked again at the girl. He had heard Jaxart's eager greeting to her and knew now that she was Emer, Rold's sister.

  He had never seen anyone like her before. There was a touch of the fey, of the elfin, about her, as though she lived in the human world by courtesy and could leave it any time she chose.

  Her eyes were grey and sad, but her mouth was gentle and shaped for laughter. Her body had the same quick grace he had noticed in the Halflings and yet it was a very humanly lovely body.

  She had pride, too-pride to match Ywain's own though they were so different. Ywain was all brilliance and fire and passion, a rose with blood-red petals. Carse understood her. He could play her own game and beat her at it.

  But he knew that he would never understand Emer. She was part of all the things he had left behind him long ago. She was the lost music and the forgotten dreams, the pity and the tenderness, the whole shadowy world he had glimpsed in childhood but never since.

  All at once she looked up and saw him. Her eyes met his-met and held, and would not go away. He saw their expression change. He saw every drop of color drain from her face until it was like a mask of snow. He heard her say,

  "Who are you?"

  He bent his head. "Lady Emer, I am Carse the barbarian."

  He saw how her fingers dug into Shallah's fur and he saw how the Swimmer watched him with her soft hostile gaze. Emer's voice answered, almost below the threshold of hearing.

  "You have no name. You are as Shallah said-a stranger."

  Something about the way she said the word made it seem full of an eerie menace. And it was so uncannily close to the truth. He sensed suddenly that this girl had the same extra-sensory power as the Halflings, developed in her human brain to even greater strength.

  But he forced a laugh. "You must have many strangers in Khondor these days." He glanced at the Swimmer. "Shallah distrusts me, I don't know why. Did she tell you also that I carry a dark shadow with me wherever I go?"

  "She did not need to tell me," Emer whispered. "Your face is only a mask and behind it is a darkness and a wish-and they are not of our world."

  She came to him with slow steps, as though drawn against her will. He could see the dew of sweat on her forehead, and abruptly he began to tremble himself, a shivering deep within him that was not of the flesh.

  "I can see . . . I can almost see . . ."

  He did not want her to say any more. He did not want to hear it.

  "No!" he cried out. "No!"

  She suddenly fell forward, her body heavy against him. He caught her and eased her down to the grey rock, where she lay in a dead faint.

  He knelt helplessly beside her but Shallah said quietly, "I will care for her." He stood up and then Rold and the Sea Kings were around them like a ring of startled eagles.

  "The seeing was upon her," Shallah told them.

  "But it has never taken her like this before," Rold said worriedly. "What happened? My thought was all on Ywain."

  "What happened is between the lady Emer and the stranger," said Shallah. She picked up the girl in her strong arms and bore her away.

  Carse felt that strange inner fear still chilling him. The "seeing" they had called it. Seeing indeed, not of any supernatural kind, but of strong extra-sensory powers that had looked deep into his mind.

  In sudden reaction of anger Carse said, "A fine welcome! All of us brushed aside for a look at Ywain and then your sister faints at sight of me!"

  "By the gods!" Rold groaned. "Your pardon-we had not meant it so. As for my sister, she is too much with the Halflings and given as they are to dreams of the mind."

  He raised his voice. "Ho, there, Ironbeard! Let us redeem our manners!"

  The largest of the Sea Kings, a grizzled giant with a laugh like the north wind, came forward and before Carse realized their intention they had tossed him onto their shoulders and marched with him up the quays where everyone could see him.

  "Hark, you!" Rold bellowed. "Hark!"

  The crowd quieted at his voice.

  "Here is Carse, the barbarian. He took the galley-he captured Ywain-he slew the Serpent! How do you greet him?"

  Their greeting nearly brought down the cliffs. The two big men bore Carse up the steps and would not put him down. The people of Khondor streamed after them, accepting the men of his crew as their brothers. Carse caught a glimpse of Boghaz, his face one vast porcine smile, holding a giggling girl in each arm.

  Ywain walked alone in the centre of a guard of the Sea Kings. The scarred man watched her with a brooding madness in his unwinking eyes.

  Rold and Ironbeard dumped Carse to his feet at the summit, panting.

  "You're a heavyweight, my friend," gasped Rold, grinning. "Now-does our penance satisfy you?"

  Carse swore, feeling shamefaced. Then he stared in wonder at the city of Khondor.

  A monolithic city, hewn in the rock itself. The crest had been split, apparently by diastrophic convulsions in the remoter ages of Mars. All along the inner cliffs of the split were doorways and the openings of galleries, a perfect honeycomb of dwellings and giddy flights of steps.

  Those who had been too old or disabled to climb the long way down to the harbor cheered them now from the galleries or from the narrow streets and squares.

  The sea wind blew keen and cold at this height, so that there was always a throb and a wail in the streets of Khond, mingling with the booming voices of the waves below. From the upper crags there was a coming and going of the Sky Folk, who seemed to like the high places as though the streets cramped them. Their fledglings tossed on the wind, swooping and tumbling in their private games, with bursts of elfin laughter.

  Landward Carse looked down upon green fields and pasture land, locked tight in the arms of the mountains. It seemed as though this place could withstand a siege forever.

  They went along the rocky ways with the people of Khondor pouring after them, filling the eyrie-city with shouts and laughter. There was a large square, with two squat strong porticoes facing each other across it. One had carven pillars before it, dedicated to the God of Waters and the God of the Four Winds. Before the other a golden banner whipped, broidered with the eagle badge of Khondor.

  At the threshold of the palace Ironbeard clapped the Earth-man on the shoulder, a staggering buffet.

  "There'll be heavy talk along with the feasting of the Council tonight. But we have plenty of time to get decently drunk before that. How say you?"

  And Carse said, "Lead on!"

  11: Dread Accusation

  That night torches lighted the banquet hall with a smoky glare. Fires burned on round hearths between the pillars, which were hung with shields and the ensigns of many ships. The whole vast room was hollowed out of the living rock with galleries that gave upon the sea.

  Long tables were set out. Servants ran among them with flagons of wine and smoking joints fresh from the fires. Carse had nobly followed the lead of Ironbeard all afternoon and to his somewhat unsteady sight it seemed that all of Khondor was feasting there to the wild music of harps and the singing of the skalds.

  He sat with the Sea Kings and the leaders of the Swimmers and the Sky Folk on the raised dais at the north end of the hall. Ywain was there also. They had made her stand and she had remained motionless for hours, giving no sign of weakness, her head still high. Carse admired her. He liked it in her that she was still the proud Ywain.

  Around the
curving wall had been set the figureheads of ships taken in war so that Carse felt surrounded by shadowy looming monsters that quivered on the brink of life with the torchlight picking glints from a jeweled eye or a gilded talon, momentarily lighting a carven face half ripped away by a ram.

  Emer was nowhere in the hall.

  Carse's head rang with the wine and the talking and there was a mounting excitement in him. He fondled the hilt of the sword of Rhiannon where it lay between his knees. Presently, presently, it would be time.

  Rold set his drinking-horn down with a bang.

  "Now," he said, "let's get to business." He was a trifle thick-tongued, as they all were, but fully in command of himself. "And the business, my lords? Why, a very pleasant one." He laughed. "One we've thought on for a long time, all of us-the death of Ywain of Sark!"

  Carse stiffened. He hadn't been expecting that. "Wait! She's my captive."

  They all cheered him at that and drank his health again, all except Thorn of Tarak, the man with the useless arm and the twisted cheek, who had sat silent all evening, drinking steadily but not getting drunk.

  "Of course," said Rold. "Therefore the choice is yours." He turned to look at Ywain with pleasant speculation. "How shall she die?"

  "Die?" Carse got to his feet. "What is this talk of Ywain dying?"

  They stared at him rather stupidly, too astonished for the moment to believe that they had heard him right. Ywain smiled grimly.

  "But why else did you bring her here?" demanded Ironbeard. "The sword is too clean a death or you would have slain her on the galley. Surely you gave her to us for our vengeance?"

  "I have not given her to anyone!" Carse shouted. "I say she is mine and I say she is not to be killed!"

  There was a stunned pause. Ywain's eyes met the Earthman's, bright with mockery. Then Thorn of Tarak said one word, "Why?"

  He was looking straight at Carse now with his dark mad eyes and the Earthman found his question hard to answer.

  "Because her life is worth too much, as a hostage. Are you babes, that you can't see that? Why, you could buy the release of every Khond slave-perhaps even bring Sark to terms!"

  Thorn laughed. It was not pleasant laughter.

  The leader of the Swimmers said, "My people would not have it so."

  "Nor mine," said the winged man.

  "Nor mine!" Rold was on his feet now, flushed with anger. "You're an outlander, Carse. Perhaps you don't understand how things are with us!"

  "No," said Thorn of Tarak softly. "Give her back. She, that learned kindness at Garach's knee, and drank wisdom from the teachers of Caer Dhu. Set her free again to mark others with her blessing as she marked me when she burned my longship." His eyes burned into the Earthman. "Let her live-because the barbarian loves her."

  Carse stared at him. He knew vaguely that the Sea Kings tensed forward, watching him-the nine chiefs of war with the eyes of tigers, their hands already on their sword-hilts. He knew that Ywain's lips curved as though at some private jest. And he burst out laughing.

  He roared with it. "Look you!" he cried, and turned his back so that they might see the scars of the lash. "Is that a love-note Ywain has written on my hide? And if it were-it was no song of passion the Dhuvian was singing me when I slew him!"

  He swung round again, hot with wine, flushed with the power he knew he had over them.

  "Let any man of you say that again and I'll take the head from his shoulders. Look at you. Great nidderings, quarrelling over a wench's life! Why don't you gather, all of you, and make an assault on Sark!"

  There was a great clatter and scraping of feet as they rose, howling at him in their rage at his impudence, bearded chins thrust forward, knotty fists hammering on the boat.

  "What do you take yourself for, you pup of the sandhills?" Rold shouted. "Have you never heard of the Dhuvians and their weapons, who are Sark's allies? How many Khonds do you think have died these long years past, trying to face those weapons?"

  "But suppose," asked Carse, "you had weapons of your own?"

  Something in his voice penetrated even to Rold, who scowled at him. "If you have a meaning, speak it plainly!"

  "Sark could not stand against you," Carse said, "if you had the weapons of Rhiannon."

  Ironbeard snorted. "Oh, aye, the Cursed One! Find his Tomb and the powers in its and we'll follow you to Sark, fast enough."

  "Then you have pledged yourselves," Carse said and held the sword aloft. "Look there! Look well-does any man among you know enough to recognize this blade?"

  Thorn of Tarak reached out his one good hand and drew the sword closer that he might study it. Then his hand began to tremble. He looked up at the others and said in a strange awed voice, "It is the sword of Rhiannon."

  A harsh sibilance of indrawn breath and then Carse spoke.

  "There is my proof. I hold the secret of the Tomb."

  Silence. Then a guttural sound from Ironbeard and after that, mounting, wild excitement that burst and spread like flame.

  "He knows the secret! By the gods he knows!"

  "Would you face the Dhuvian weapons if you had the greater powers of Rhiannon?" Carse asked.

  There was such a crazy clamor of excitement that it took moments for Rold's voice to be heard. The tall Khond's face was half doubtful.

  "Could we use Rhiannon's weapons of power if we had them? We can't even understand the Dhuvian weapons you captured in the galley."

  "Give me time to study and test them and I'll solve the way of using Rhiannon's instruments of power," Carse replied confidently.

  He was sure that he could. It would take time but he was sure that his own knowledge of science was sufficient to decipher the operation of at least some of those weapons of an alien science.

  He swung the great sword high, glittering in the red light of the torches, and his voice rang out, "And if I arm you thus will you make good your word? Will you follow me to Sark?"

  All doubts were swept away by the challenge, by the heaven-sent opportunity to strike at last at Sark on at least even terms.

  The answer of the Sea Kings roared out. "We'll follow!"

  It was then that Carse saw Emer. She had come onto the dais by some inner passage, standing now between two brooding giant figureheads crusted with the memory of the sea, and her eyes were fixed on Carse, wide and full of horror.

  Something about her compelled them, even in that moment, to turn and stare. She stepped out into the open space above the table. She wore only a loose white robe and her hair was unbound. It was as though she had just risen from sleep and was walking still in the midst of a dream.

  But it was an evil dream. The weight of it crushed her, so that her steps were slow and her breathing labored and even these fighting men felt the touch of it on their own hearts.

  Emer spoke and her words were very clear and measured.

  "I saw this before when the stranger first came before me, but my strength failed me and I could not speak. Now I shall tell you. You must destroy this man. He is danger, he is darkness, he is death for us all!"

  Ywain stiffened, her eyes narrowing. Carse felt her glance on him, intense with interest. But his attention was all on Emer. As on the quay he was filled with a strange terror that had nothing to do with ordinary fear, an unexplainable dread of this girl's strong extra-sensory powers.

  Rold broke in and Carse got a grip on himself. Fool, he thought, to be upset by woman's talk, woman's imaginings . . .

  "-the secret of the Tomb!" Rold was saying. "Did you not hear? He can give us the power of Rhiannon!"

  "Aye," said Emer somberly. "I heard and I believe. He knows well the hidden place of the Tomb and he knows the weapons that are there."

  She moved closer, looking up at Carse where he stood in the torchlight, the sword in his hands. She spoke now directly to him.

  "Why should you not know, who have brooded there so long in the darkness? Why should you not know, who made those powers of evil with your own hands?"

  Was it th
e heat and the wine that made the rock walls reel and put the cold sickness in his belly? He tried to speak and only a hoarse sound came, without words. Emer's voice went on, relentless, terrible.

  "Why should you not know-you who are the Cursed One, Rhiannon!"

  The rock walls gave back the word like a whispered curse, until the hall was filled with the ghostly name Rhiannon! It seemed to Carse that the very shields rang with it and the banners trembled. And still the girl stood unmoving, challenging him to speak, and his tongue was dead and dry in his mouth.

  They stared at him, all of them-Ywain and the Sea Kings and the feasters silent amid the spilled wine and the forgotten banquet.

  It was as though he were Lucifer fallen, crowned with all the wickedness of the world.

  Then Ywain laughed, a sound with an odd note of triumph in it. "So that is why! I see it now-why you called upon the Cursed One in the cabin there, when you stood against the power of Caer Dhu that no man can resist, and slew S'San."

  Her voice rang out mockingly. "Hail, Lord Rhiannon!"

  That broke the spell. Carse said, "You lying vixen. You salve your pride with that. No mere man could down Ywain of Sark but a god-that's different."

  He shouted at them all. "Are you fools or children that you listen to such madness? You, there, Jaxart-you toiled beside me at the oar. Does a god bleed under the lash like a common slave?"

  Jaxart said slowly, "That first night in the galley I heard you cry Rhiannon's name."

  Carse swore. He rounded on the Sea Kings. "You're warriors, not serving-maids. Use your wits. Has my body moldered in a tomb for ages? Am I a dead thing walking?"

  Out of the tail of his eyes he saw Boghaz moving toward the dais and here and there the drunken devils of the galley's crew were rising also, loosening their swords, to rally to him.

  Rold put his hands on Emer's shoulders and said sternly, "What say you to this, my sister?"

  "I have not spoken of the body," Emer answered, "only of the mind. The mind of the mighty Cursed One could live on and on. It did live and now it has somehow entered into this barbarian, dwelling here as a snail lies curled within its shell."