The Halfling and Other Stories

by Leigh Brackett

  They had not mummified, nor turned to stone. They were pliable, and their colors were very bright. Simply, they had ceased to live, and the gases of the sea had preserved them by some chemical magic, so perfectly that barely a leaf had fallen.

  Stark did not venture into the shadowy denseness below the topmost branches. A strange fear came over him, at the sight of that vast forest dreaming in the depths of the gulf, drowned and forgotten, as though wondering why the birds had gone, taking with them the warm rains and the light of day.

  He thrust his way upward, himself like a huge dark bird above the branches. An overwhelming impulse to get away from that unearthly place drove him on, his half-wild sense shuddering with an impression of evil so great that it took all his acquired commonsense to assure him that he was not pursued by demons.

  He broke the surface at last, to find that he had lost his direction in the red deep and made a long circle around, so that he was far below Shuruun. He made his way back, hot hurrying now, and presently clambered out over the black rocks.

  He stood at the end of a muddy lane that wandered in toward the town. He followed it, moving neither fast nor slow, but with a wary alertness.

  Huts of wattle-and-daub took shape out of the fog, increased in numbers, became a street of dwellings. Here and there rushlights glimmered through the slitted windows. A man and a woman clung together in a low doorway. They saw him and sprang apart, and the woman gave a little cry. Stark went on. He did not look back, but he knew that they were following him quietly, at a little distance.

  The lane twisted snakelike upon itself, crawling now through a crowded jumble of houses. There were more lights, and more people, tall white-skinned folk of the swamp-edges, with pale eyes and long hair the color of new flax, and the faces of wolves.

  Stark passed among them, alien and strange with his black hair and sun-darkened skin. They did not speak, nor try to stop him. Only they looked at him out of the red fog, with a curious blend of amusement and fear, and some of them followed him, keeping well behind. A gang of small naked children came from somewhere among the houses and ran shouting beside him, out of reach, until one boy threw a stone and screamed something unintelligible except for one word—Lhari. Then they all stopped, horrified, and fled.

  Stark went on, through the quarter of the lacemakers, heading by instinct toward the wharves. The glow of the Red Sea pervaded all the air, so that it seemed as though the mist was full of tiny drops of blood. There was a smell about the place he did not like, a damp miasma of mud and crowding bodies and wine, and the breath of the vela poppy. Shuruun was an unclean town, and it stank of evil.

  There was something else about it, a subtle thing that touched Stark’s nerves with a chill finger. Fear. He could see the shadow of it in the eyes of the people, hear its undertone in their voices. The wolves of Shuruun did not feel safe in their own kennel. Unconsciously, as this feeling grew upon him, Stark’s step grew more and more wary, his eyes more cold and hard.

  He came out into a broad square by the harbor front. He could see the ghostly ships moored along the quays, the piled casks of wine, the tangle of masts and cordage dim against the background of the burning gulf. There were many torches here. Large low buildings stood around the square. There was laughter and the sound of voices from the dark verandas, and somewhere a woman sang to the melancholy lilting of a reed pipe.

  A suffused glow of light in the distance ahead caught Stark’s eye. That way the streets sloped to a higher ground, and straining his vision against the fog, he made out very dimly the tall bulk of a castle crouched on the low cliffs, looking with bright eyes upon the night, and the streets of Shuruun.

  Stark hesitated briefly. Then he started across the square toward the largest of the taverns.

  There were a number of people in the open space, mostly sailors and their women. They were loose and foolish with wine, but even so they stopped where they were and stared at the dark stranger, and then drew back from him, still staring.

  Those who had followed Stark came into the square after him and then paused, spreading out in an aimless sort of way to join with other groups, whispering among themselves.

  The woman stopped singing in the middle of a phrase.

  A curious silence fell on the square. A nervous sibilance ran round and round under the silence, and men came slowly out from the verandas and the doors of the wine shops. Suddenly a woman with disheveled hair pointed her arm at Stark and laughed, the shrieking laugh of a harpy.

  Stark found his way barred by three tall young men with hard mouths and crafty eyes, who smiled at him as hounds smile before the kill.

  “Stranger,” they said. “Earthman.”

  “Outlaw,” answered Stark, and it was only half a lie.

  One of the young men took a step forward. “Did you fly like a dragon over the Mountains of White Cloud? Did you drop from the sky?”

  “I came on Malthor’s ship.”

  A kind of sigh went round the square, and with it the name of Malthor. The eager faces of the young men grew heavy with disappointment. But the leader said sharply, “I was on the quay when Malthor docked. You were not on board.”

  It was Stark’s turn to smile. In the light of the torches, his eyes blazed cold and bright as ice against the sun.

  “Ask Malthor the reason for that,” he said. “Ask the man with the tom cheek. Or perhaps,” he added softly, “you would like to learn for yourselves.”

  The young men looked at him, scowling, in an odd mood of indecision. Stark settled himself, every muscle loose and ready. And the woman who had laughed crept closer and peered at Stark through her tangled hair, breathing heavily of the poppy wine.

  All at once she said loudly, “He came out of the sea. That’s where he came from. He’s…”

  One of the young men struck her across the mouth and she fell down in the mud. A burly seaman ran out and caught her by the hair, dragging her to her feet again. His face was frightened and very angry. He hauled the woman away, cursing her for a fool and beating her as he went. She spat out blood, and said no more.

  “Well,” said Stark to the young men. “Have you made up your minds?”

  “Minds!” said a voice behind them—a harsh-timbered, rasping voice that handled the liquid vocables of the Venusian speech very clumsily indeed. “They have no minds, these whelps! If they had, they’d be off about their business, instead of standing here badgering a stranger.”

  The young men turned, and now between them Stark could see the man who had spoken. He stood on the steps of the tavern. He was an Earthman, and at first Stark thought he was old, because his hair was white and his face deeply lined. His body was wasted with fever, the muscles all gone to knotty strings twisted over bone. He leaned heavily on a stick, and one leg was crooked and terribly scarred.

  He grinned at Stark and said, in colloquial English, “Watch me get rid of ’em!”

  He began to tonguelash the young men, telling them that they were idiots, the misbegotten offspring of swamp-toads, utterly without manners, and that if they did not believe the stranger’s story they should go and ask Malthor, as he suggested. Finally he shook his stick at them, fairly screeching.

  “Go on, now. Go away! Leave us alone—my brother of Earth and I!”

  The young men gave one hesitant glance at Stark’s feral eyes. Then they looked at each other and shrugged, and went away across the square half sheepishly, like great loutish boys caught in some misdemeanor.

  The white-haired Earthman beckoned to Stark. And, as Stark came up to him on the steps he said under his breath, almost angrily, “You’re in a trap.”

  Stark glanced back over his shoulder. At the edge of the square the three young men had met a fourth, who had his face bound up in a rag. They vanished almost at once into a side street, but not before Stark had recognized the fourth man as Malthor.

  It was the captain he had branded.

  With loud cheerfulness, the lame man said in Venusian, “Come in and dr
ink with me, brother, and we will talk of Earth.”

  CHAPTER III

  The tavern was of the standard low-class Venusian pattern— a single huge room under bare thatch, the wall half open with the reed shutters rolled up, the floor of split logs propped up on pilings out of the mud. A long low bar, little tables, mangy skins and heaps of dubious cushions on the floor around them, and at one end the entertainers—two old men with a drum and a reed pipe, and a couple of sulky, tired-looking girls.

  The lame man led Stark to a table in the corner and sank down, calling for wine. His eyes, which were dark and haunted by long pain, burned with excitement. His hands shook. Before Stark had sat down he had begun to talk, his words stumbling over themselves as though he could not get them out fast enough.

  “How is it there now? Has it changed any? Tell me how it is—the cities, the lights, the paved streets, the women, the Sun. Oh Lord, what I wouldn’t give to see the Sun again, and women with dark hair and their clothes on!” He leaned forward, staring hungrily into Stark’s face, as though he could see those things mirrored there. “For God’s sake, talk to me—talk to me in English, and tell me about Earth!”

  “How long have you been here?” asked Stark.

  “I don’t know. How do you reckon time on a world without a Sun, without one damned little star to look at? Ten years, a hundred years, how should I know? Forever. Tell me about Earth.”

  Stark smiled wryly. “I haven’t been there for a long time. The police were too ready with a welcoming committee. But the last time I saw it, it was just the same.”

  The lame man shivered. He was not looking at Stark now, but at some place far beyond him.

  “Autumn woods,” he said. “Red and gold on the brown hills. Snow. I can remember how it felt to be cold. The air bit you when you breathed it. And the women wore high-heeled slippers. No big bare feet tramping in the mud, but little sharp heels tapping on clean pavement.”

  Suddenly he glared at Stark, his eyes furious and bright with tears.

  “Why the hell did you have to come here and start me remembering? I’m Larrabee. I live in Shuruun. I’ve been here forever, and I’ll be here till I die. There isn’t any Earth. It’s gone. Just look up into the sky, and you’ll know it’s gone. There’s nothing anywhere but clouds, and Venus, and mud.”

  He sat still, shaking, turning his head from side to side. A man came with wine, put it down, and went away again. The tavern was very quiet. There was a wide space empty around the two Earthmen. Beyond that people lay on the cushions, sipping the poppy wine and watching with a sort of furtive expectancy.

  Abruptly, Larrabee laughed, a harsh sound that held a certain honest mirth.

  “I don’t know why I should get sentimental about Earth at this late date. Never thought much about it when I was there.”

  Nevertheless, he kept his gaze averted, and when he picked up his cup his hand trembled so that he spilled some of the wine.

  Stark was staring at him in unbelief. “Larrabee,” he said. “You’re Mike Larrabee. You’re the man who got half a million credits out of the strong room of the Royal Venus.”

  Larrabee nodded. “And got away with it, right over the Mountains of White Cloud, that they said couldn’t be flown. And do you know where that half a million is now? At the bottom of the Red Sea, along with my ship and my crew, out there in the gulf. Lord knows why I lived.” He shrugged. “Well, anyway, I was heading for Shuruun when I crashed, and I got here. So why complain?”

  He drank again, deeply, and Stark shook his head.

  “You’ve been here nine years, then, by Earth time,” he said. He had never met Larrabee, but he remembered the pictures of him that had flashed across space on police bands. Larrabee had been a young man then, dark and proud and handsome.

  Larrabee guessed his thought. “I’ve changed, haven’t I?”

  Stark said lamely, “Everybody thought you were dead.”

  Larrabee laughed. After that, for a moment, there was silence. Stark’s ears were straining for any sound outside. There was none.

  He said abruptly, “What about this trap I’m in?”

  “I’ll tell you one thing about it,” said Larrabee. “There’s no way out. I can’t help you. I wouldn’t if I could, get that straight. But I can’t, anyway.”

  “Thanks,” Stark said sourly. “You can at least tell me what goes on.”

  “Listen,” said Larrabee. “I’m a cripple, and an old man, and Shuruun isn’t the sweetest place in the Solar System to live. But I do live. I have a wife, a slatternly wench I’ll admit, but good enough in her way. You’ll notice some little darkhaired brats rolling in the mud. They’re mine, too. I have some skill at setting bones and such, and so I can get drunk for nothing as often as I will—which is often. Also, because of this bum leg, I’m perfectly safe. So don’t ask me what goes on. I take great pains not to know.”

  Stark said, “Who are the Lhari?”

  “Would you like to meet them?” Larrabee seemed to find something very amusing in that thought. “Just go on up to the castle. They live there. They’re the Lords of Shuruun, and they’re always glad to meet strangers.”

  He leaned forward suddenly. “Who are you anyway? What’s your name, and why the devil did you come here?”

  “My name is Stark. And I came here for the same reason you did.”

  “Stark,” repeated Larrabee slowly, his eyes intent. “That rings a faint bell. Seems to me I saw a Wanted flash once, some idiot that had led a native revolt somewhere in the Jovian Colonies—a big cold-eyed brute they referred to colorfully as the wild man from Mercury.”

  He nodded, pleased with himself. “Wild man, eh? Well, Shuruun will tame you down!”

  Perhaps,” said Stark. His eyes shifted constantly, watching Larrabee, watching the doorway and the dark veranda and the people who drank but did not talk among themselves. “Speaking of strangers, one came here at the time of the last rains. He was Venusian, from up-coast. A big young man. I used to know him. Perhaps he could help me.”

  Larrabee snorted. By now, he had drunk his own wine and Stark’s too. “Nobody can help you. As for your friend, I never saw him. I’m beginning to think I should never have seen you.” Quite suddenly he caught up his stick and got with some difficulty to his feet. He did not look at Stark, but said harshly, “You better get out of here.” Then he turned and limped unsteadily to the bar.

  Stark rose. He glanced after Larrabee, and again his nostrils twitched to the smell of fear. Then he went out of the tavern the way he had come in, through the front door. No one moved to stop him. Outside, the square was empty. It had begun to rain.

  Stark stood for a moment on the steps. He was angry, and filled with a dangerous unease, the hair-trigger nervousness of a tiger that senses the beaters creeping toward him up the wind. He would almost have welcomed the sight of Malthor and the three young men. But there was nothing to fight but the silence and the rain.

  He stepped out into the mud, wet and warm around his ankles. An idea came to him, and he smiled, beginning now to move with a definite purpose, along the side of the square.

  The sharp downpour strengthened. Rain smoked from Stark’s naked shoulders, beat against thatch and mud with a hissing rattle. The harbor had disappeared behind boiling clouds of fog, where water struck the surface of the Red Sea and was turned again instantly by chemical action into vapor. The quays and the neighboring streets were being swallowed up in the impenetrable mist. Lightning came with an eerie bluish flare, and thunder came rolling after it.

  Stark turned up the narrow way that led toward the castle.

  Its lights were winking out now, one by one, blotted by the creeping fog. Lightning etched its shadowy bulk against the night, and then was gone. And through the noise of the thunder that followed, Stark thought he heard a voice calling.

  He stopped, half crouching, his hand on his gun. The cry came again, a girl’s voice, thin as the wail of a seabird through the driving rain. Then he saw her, a
small white blur in the street behind him, running, and even in that dim glimpse of her every line of her body was distinct with fright.

  Stark set his back against a wall and waited. There did not seem to be anyone with her, though it was hard to tell in the darkness and the storm.

  She came up to him, and stopped, just out of his reach, looking at him and away again with a painful irresoluteness. A bright flash showed her to him clearly. She was young, not long out of her childhood, and pretty in a stupid sort of way. Just now her mouth trembled on the edge of weeping, and her eyes were very large and scared. Her skirt clung to her long thighs, and above it her naked body, hardly fleshed into womanhood, glistened like snow in the wet. Her pale hair hung dripping over her shoulders.

  Stark said gently, “What do you want with me?”

  She looked at him, so miserably like a wet puppy that he smiled. And as though that smile had taken what little resolution she had out of her, she dropped to her knees, sobbing.

  “I can’t do it,” she wailed. “He’ll kill me, but I just can’t do it!”

  “Do what?” asked Stark.

  She stared up at him. “Run away,” she urged him. “Run away now! You’ll die in the swamps, but that’s better than being one of the Lost Ones!” She shook her thin arms at him. “Run away!”

  CHAPTER IV

  The street was empty. Nothing showed, nothing stirred anywhere. Stark leaned over and pulled the girl to her feet, drawing her in under the shelter of the thatched eaves.

  “Now then,” he said. “Suppose you stop crying and tell me what this is all about.”

  Presently, between gulps and hiccoughs, he got the story out of her.

  “I am Zareth,” she said. “Malthor’s daughter. He’s afraid of you, because of what you did to him on the ship, so he ordered me to watch for you in the square, when you would come out of the tavern. Then I was to follow you, and…”