Stark knew them all. Knighton and Walsh of Terra, Themis of Mercury, Arrod of Callisto Colony — and Luhar of Venus. Pirates, thieves, renegades, and each one an expert in his line.
Ashton was right. There was something big, something very big and very ugly, shaping between Valkis and the Drylands.
But that was only a quick, passing thought in Stark's mind.
It was on Luhar that his attention centred. Bitter memory and hatred had come to savage life within him as soon as he saw the Venusian.
The man was handsome. A cashiered officer of the crack Venusian Guards, very slim, very elegant, his pale hair cropped short and curling, his dark tunic fitting him like a second skin.
He said, 'The aborigine! I thought we had enough barbarians here without sending for more.'
Stark said nothing. He began to walk toward Luhar.
Luhar said sharply, 'There's no use in getting nasty, Stark. Past scores are past. We're on the same side now.'
The Earthman spoke, then, with a peculiar gentleness.
'We were on the same side once before. Against Terror-Venus Metals. Remember?'
'I remember very well!' Luhar was speaking now not to Stark alone, but to everyone in the room. 'I remember that your innocent barbarian friends had me tied to the block there in the swamps, and that you were watching the whole thing with honest pleasure. If the Company men hadn't come along, I'd be screaming there yet.'
'You sold us out,' Stark said. 'You had it coming.'
He continued to walk toward Luhar.
Delgaun spoke. He did not raise his voice, yet Stark felt the impact of his command.
'There will be no fighting here,' Delgaun said. 'You are both hired mercenaries, and while you take my pay you will forget your private quarrels. Do you understand?'
Luhar nodded and sat down, smiling out of the corner of his mouth at Stark, who stood looking with narrowed eyes at Delgaun.
He was still half blind with his anger against Luhar. His hands ached for the kill. But even so, he recognised the power in Delgaun.
A sound shockingly akin to the growl of a beast echoed in his throat. Then, gradually, he relaxed. The man Delgaun he would have challenged. But to do so would wreck the mission that he had promised to carry out here for Ashton.
He shrugged, and joined the others at the table.Walsh of Terra rose abruptly and began to prowl back and forth.
'How much longer do we have to wait?' he demanded. Delgaun poured wine into a bronze goblet. 'Don't expect me to know,' he snapped. He shoved the flagon along the table toward Stark.
Stark helped himself. The wine was warm and sweet on his tongue. He drank slowly, sitting relaxed and patient while the others smoked nervously or rose to pace up and down. Stark wondered what, or who, they were waiting for. But he did not ask.
Time went by.
Stark raised his head, listening. 'What's that?'
Their duller ears had heard nothing, but Delgaun rose and flung open the shutters of the window near him.
The Martian dawn, brilliant and clear, flooded the dead sea bottom with harsh light. Beyond the black line of the canal a caravan was coming toward Valkis through the blowing dust. It was no ordinary caravan. Warriors rode before and behind, their spearheads blazing in the sunrise. Jewelled trappings on the beasts, a litter with curtains of crimson silk, barbaric splendour. Clear and thin on the air came the wild music of pipes and the deep-throated throbbing of drums.
Stark guessed without being told who it was that rode out of the desert like a king.
Delgaun made a harsh sound in his throat. 'It's Kynon, at last!' he said, and swung around from the window. His eyes sparkled with some private amusement. 'Let us go and welcome the Giver of Life!'
Stark went with them, out into the crowded streets. A silence had fallen on the town. Valkisian and barbarian alike were caught now in a breathless excitement, pressing through the narrow ways, flowing toward the canal.
Stark found himself beside Delgaun in the great square of the slave market, standing on the auction block, above the heads of the throng. The stillness, the expectancy of the crowd were uncanny ...
To the measured thunder of drums and the wild skirling of desert pipes, Kynon of Shun came into Valkis.
3
Straight into the square of the slave market the caravan came, and the people pressed back against the walls to make way for them. Stamping of padded hooves on the stones, ring and clash of harness, brave glitter of spears and the great two-handed broadswords of the Drylands, with drumbeats to shake the heart and the savage cry of the pipes to set the blood leaping. Stark could not restrain an appreciative thrill in himself.
The advance guard reached the slave block. Then, with deafening abruptness, the drummers crossed their sticks and the pipers ceased, and there was utter silence in the square.
It lasted for almost a minute, and then from every barbarian throat the name of Kynon roared out until the stones of the city echoed with it.
A man leaped from the back of his mount to the block, standing at its outer edge where all could see, his hands flung up. 'I greet you, my brothers!'
And the cheering went on.
Stark studied Kynon, surprised that he was so young. He had expected a grey-bearded prophet, and instead, here was a brawny-shouldered man of war standing as tall as himself.
Kynon's eyes were a bright, compelling blue, and his face was the face of a young eagle. His voice had deep music in it — the kind of voice that can sway crowds to madness.
Stark looked from him to the rapt faces of the people — even the Valkisians had caught the mood — and thought that Kynon was the most dangerous man he had ever seen. This tawny-haired barbarian in his kilt of bronze-bossed leather was already half a god.
Kynon shouted to the captain of his warriors, 'Bring the captive and the old man!' Then he turned again to the crowd,urging them to silence. When at last the square was still, his voice rang challengingly across it.
'There are still those who doubt me. Therefore I have come to Valkis, and this day — now! — I will show proof that I have not lied!'
A roar and a mutter from the crowd. Kynon's men were lifting to the block a tottering ancient so bowed with years that he could barely stand, and a youth of Terran stock. The boy was in chains. The old man's eyes burned, and he looked at the boy beside him with a terrible joy.
Stark settled down to watch. The litter with the curtains of crimson silk was now beside the block. A girl, a Valkisian, stood beside it, looking up. It seemed to Stark that her green eyes rested on Kynon with a smouldering anger.
He glanced away from the serving girl, and saw that the curtains were partly open. A woman lay on the cushions within. He could not see much of her, except that her hair was like dark flame and she was smiling, looking at the old man and the naked boy. Then her glance, very dark in the shadows of the litter, shifted away and Stark followed it and saw Delgaun. Every muscle of Delgaun's body was drawn taut, and he seemed unable to look away from the woman in the litter.
Stark smiled very slightly. The outlanders were cynically absorbed in what was going on. The crowd had settled again to that silent, breathless tension. The sun blazed down out of the empty sky. The dust blew, and the wind was sharp with the smell of living flesh.
The old man reached out and touched the boy's smooth shoulder, and his gums showed bluish as he laughed.
Kynon was speaking again.
'There are still those who doubt me, I say! Those who scoffed when I said that I possessed the ancient secret of the Ramas of long ago — the secret by which one man's mind may be transferred into another's body. But none of you after today will doubt that I hold that secret!
'I, myself, am not a Rama.' He glanced down along his powerful frame, half-consciously flexing his muscles, and laughed.
'Why should I be a Rama? I have no need, as yet, for the Sending-on of Minds!'
Answering laughter, half ribald, from the crowd.
'No,' said Ky
non, 'I am not a Rama. I am a man like you. Like you, I have no wish to grow old, and in the end, to die.' He swung abruptly to the old man.
'You, Grandfather! Would you not wish to be young again — to ride out to battle, to take the woman of your choice?'
The old man wailed, 'Yes! Yes!' and his gaze dwelt hungrily upon the boy.
'And you shall be!' The strength of a god rang in Kynon's voice. He turned again to the crowd and cried out.
Tor years I suffered in the desert alone, searching for the lost secret of the Ramas. And I found it, my brothers! I hold their ancient power. I alone — in these two hands I hold it, and with it I shall begin a new era for our Dryland races!
'There will be fighting, yes. There will be bloodshed. But when that is over and the men of Kesh and Shun are free from their ancient bondage of thirst and the men of the Low-Canals have regained their own — then I shall give new life, unending life, to all who have followed me. The aged and lamed and wounded can choose new bodies from among the captives. There will be no more age, no more sickness, no more death!'
A rippling, shivering sigh from the crowd. Eyeballs gleaming in the bitter light, mouths open on the hunger that is nearest to the human soul.
'Lest anyone still doubt my promise,' said Kynon, 'watch. Watch — and I will show you!'
They watched. Not stirring, hardly breathing, they watched.
The drums struck up a slow and solemn beat. The captain of the warriors, with an escort of six men, marched to the litter and took from the woman's hands a bundle wrapped in silks. Bearing it as though it were precious beyond belief, he came to the block and lifted it up, and Kynon took it from him.
The silken wrappings fluttered loose, fell away. And in Kynon's hands gleamed two crystal crowns and a shining rod.
He held them high, the sunlight glancing in cold fire from he crystal.
Behold!' he said. 'The Crowns of the Ramas!'
The crowd drew breath then, one long rasping Ah!
The solemn drumbeat never faltered. It was as though the pulse of the whole world throbbed within it. Kynon turned. The old man began to tremble. Kynon placed one crown on his wrinkled scalp, and the tottering creature winced as though in pain, but his face was ecstatic.
Relentlessly, Kynon crowned with the second circlet the head of the frightened boy.
'Kneel,' he said.
They knelt. Standing tall above them, Kynon held the rod in his two hands, between the crystal crowns.
Light was born in the rod. It was no reflection of the sun. Blue and brilliant, it flashed along the rod and leaped from it to wake an answering brilliance in the crowns, so that the old man and the youth were haloed with a chill, supernal fire.
The drumbeat ceased. The old man cried out. His hands plucked feebly at his head, then went to his breast and clenched there. Quite suddenly he fell forward over his knees. A convulsive tremor shook him. Then he lay still.
The boy swayed and then fell forward also, with a clashing of chains.
The light died out of the crowns. Kynon stood a moment longer, rigid as a statue, holding the rod which still flickered with blue lightning. Then that also died.
Kynon lowered the rod. In a ringing voice he cried, 'Arise, Grandfather!'
The boy stirred. Slowly, very slowly, he rose to his feet. Holding out his hands, he stared at them, and then touched his thighs, and his flat belly, and the deep curve of his chest.
Up the firm young throat the wondering fingers went, to the smooth cheeks, to the thick fair hair above the crown. A cry broke from him.
With the perfect accent of the Drylands, the Earth boy cried in Martian, 'I am in the youth's body! I am young again!'
A scream, a wail of ecstasy, burst from the crowd. It swayed like a great beast, white faces turned upward. The boy fell down and embraced Kynon's knees.
Eric John Stark found that he himself was trembling slightly. The Valkisian wore a look of intense satisfaction under his mask of awe. The others were almost as rapt and open-mouthed as the crowd.
Stark turned his head slightly and looked down at the litter. One white hand was already drawing the curtains, so that the scarlet silk appeared to shake with silent laughter.
The serving girl beside it had not moved. Still she looked up at Kynon, and there was nothing in her eyes but hate.
After that there was bedlam, the rush and trample of the crowd, the beating of drums, the screaming of pipes, deafening uproar. The crowns and the crystal rod were wrapped again and taken away. Kynon raised up the boy and struck off the chains of captivity. He mounted, with the boy beside him. Delgaun walked before him through the streets, and so did the outlanders.
The body of the old man was disregarded, except by some of Kynon's barbarians who wrapped it in a white cloth and took it away.
Kynon of Shun came in triumph to Delgaun's palace. Standing beside the litter, he gave his hand to the woman, who stepped out and walked beside him through the bronze door.
The women of Shun are tall and strong, bred to stand beside their men in war as well as love, and this red-haired daughter of the Drylands was enough to stop a man's heart with her proud step and her white shoulders, and her eyes that were the colour of smoke. Stark's gaze followed her from a distance.
Presently in the council room were gathered Delgaun and the outlanders, Kynon and his bright-haired queen — and no other Martians but those three.
Kynon sprawled out in the high seat at the head of the table. His face was beaming. He wiped the sweat off it, and then filled a goblet with wine, looking around the room with his bright blue eyes.
'Fill up, gentlemen. I'll give you a toast.' He lifted the goblet. 'Here's to the secret of the Ramas, and the gift of life!'
Stark put down his goblet, still empty. He stared directly at Kynon.
'You have no secret,' said Stark deliberately.
Kynon sat perfectly still, except that, very slowly, he put his own goblet down. Nobody else moved.
Stark's voice sounded loud in the stillness.
'Furthermore,' he said, 'that demonstration in the square was a lie from beginning to end.'
4
Stark's words had the effect of an electric shock on the listeners. Delgaun's black brows went up, and the woman came forward a little to stare at the Earthman with profound interest.
Kynon asked a question, of nobody in particular. 'Who,' he demanded, 'is this great black ape?'
Delgaun told him.
'Ah, yes,' said Kynon. 'Eric John Stark, the wild man from Mercury.' He scowled threateningly. 'Very well — explain how I lied in the square!'
'Certainly. First of all, the Earth boy was a prisoner. He was told what he had to do to save his neck, and then was carefully coached in his part. Secondly, the crystal rod and the crowns are a fake. You used a simple Purcell unit in the rod to produce an electronic brush discharge. That made the blue light. Thirdly, you gave the old man poison, probably by means of a sharp point on the crown. I saw him wince when you put it on him.'
Stark paused. 'The old man died. The boy went through his sham. And that was that.'
Again there was a flat silence. Luhar crouched over the table, his face avid with hope. The woman's eyes dwelt on Stark and did not turn away.
Then, suddenly, Kynon laughed. He roared with it until the tears ran.
'It was a good show, though,' he said at last. 'Damned good. You'll have to admit that. The crowd swallowed it, horns, hoof and hide.'
He got up and came round to Stark, clapping him on the shoulder, a blow that would have laid a lesser man flat.
'I like you, wild man. Nobody else here had the guts to speak out, but I'll give you odds they were all thinking the same thing.'
Stark said, 'Just where were you, Kynon, during those years you were supposed to be suffering alone in the desert?'
'Curious, aren't you? Well, I'll let you in on a secret.' Kynon lapsed abruptly into perfectly good colloquial English. 'I was on Terra, learning about things like t
he Purcell electronic discharge.'
Reaching over, he poured wine for Stark and held it out to him. 'Now you know. Now we all know. So let's wash the dust out of our throats and get down to business.'
Stark said, 'No.'
Kynon looked at him. 'What now?'
'You're lying to your people,' Stark said flatly. 'You're making false promises, to lead them into war.'
Kynon was genuinely puzzled by Stark's anger. 'But of course!' he said. 'Is there anything new or strange in that?'
Luhar spoke up, his voice acid with hate. 'Watch out for him, Kynon. He'll sell you out, he'll cut your throat, if he thinks it best for the barbarians.'
Delgaun said, 'Stark's reputation is known all over the system. There's no need to tell us that again.'
'No.' Kynon shook his head, looking very candidly at Stark. 'We sent for you, didn't we, knowing that? All right.'
He stepped back a little, so that the others were included in what he was going to say.
'My people have a just cause for war. They go hungry and thirsty, while the City-States along the Dryland Border hog all the water sources and grow fat. Do you know what it means to watch your children die crying for water on a long march, to come at last to the oasis and find the well sanded in by a storm, and go on again, trying to save your people and your herd? Well, I do! I was born and bred in the Drylands, and many a time I've cursed the border states with a tongue like a dry stick.
'Stark, you should know the workings of the barbarian mind as well as I do. The men of Kesh and Shun are traditional enemies. Raiding and thieving, open warfare over water and grass. I had to give them a rallying point — a faith strong enough to unite them. hem. Resurrecting the Rama legend was the only hope I had.
'And it has worked. The tribes are one people now. They can go on and take what belongs to them — the right to live. I'm not really so far out in my promises, at all. Now do you understand?'
Stark studied him, with his cold cat-eyes. 'Where do the men of Valkis come in — the men of Jekkara and Barakesh? Where do we come in, the hired bravoes?'
Kynon smiled. It was a perfectly sincere smile, and it had no humour in it, only a great pride and a cheerful cruelty.
Sea Kings of Mars and Otherworldly Stories Page 40