The Halfling and Other Stories

by Leigh Brackett

  They were set in straight lines, the beds of black marble— lines so long that there was no end to them except the limit of vision. And on them slept the old kings, their bodies, marvelously embalmed, covered with silken palls, their hands crossed upon their breasts, their wise unhuman faces stamped with the mark of peace.

  Very gently, Stark laid Zareth down on a marble couch, and covered her also with silk, and closed her eyes and folded her hands. And it seemed to him that her face, too, had that look of peace.

  He went out with Treon, thinking that none of them had earned a better place in the hall of kings than Zareth.

  “Treon,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “That prophecy you spoke when I came to the castle—I will bear it out.”

  Treon nodded. “That is the way of prophecies.”

  He did not return toward the temple, but led the way deeper into the heart of the catacombs. A great excitement burned within him, a bright and terrible thing that communicated itself to Stark. Treon had suddenly taken on the stature of a figure of destiny, and the Earthman had the feeling that he was in the grip of some current that would plunge on irresistibly until everything in its path was swept away. Stark’s flesh quivered. They reached the end of the corridor at last. And there, in the red gloom, a shape sat waiting before a black, barred door. A shape grotesque and incredibly misshapen, so horribly malformed that by it Treon’s crippled body appeared almost beautiful. Yet its face was as the faces of the images and the old kings, and its sunken eyes had once held wisdom, and one of its seven-fingered hands was still slim and sensitive.

  Stark recoiled. The thing made him physically sick, and he would have turned away, but Treon urged him on.

  “Go closer. It is dead, embalmed, but it has a message for you. It had waited all this time to give that message.”

  Reluctantly, Stark went forward.

  Quite suddenly, it seemed that the thing spoke.

  Behold me. Look upon me, and take counsel before you grasp that power which lies beyond the door!

  Stark leaped back, crying out, and Treon smiled.

  “It was so with me. But I have listened to it many times since then. It speaks not with a voice, but within the mind, and only when one has passed a certain spot.”

  Stark’s reasoning mind pondered over that. A thought-record, obviously, triggered off by an electronic beam. The ancients had taken good care that their warning would be heard and understood by anyone who should solve the riddle of the catacombs. Thought-images, speaking directly to the brain, know no barrier of time or language.

  He stepped forward again, and once more the telepathic voice spoke to him.

  “We tampered with the secrets of the gods. We intended no evil. It was only that we love perfection, and wished to shape all living things as flawless as our buildings and our gardens. We did not know that it was against the Law….

  “I was one of those who found the way to change the living cell. We used the unseen force that comes from the Land of the Gods beyond the sky, and we so harnessed it that we could build from the living flesh as the potter builds from the clay. We healed the halt and the maimed, and made those stand tall and straight who came crooked from the egg, and for a time we were as brothers to the gods themselves. I myself, even I, knew the glory of perfection. And then came the reckoning.

  “The cell, once made to change, would not stop changing. The growth was slow, and for a while we did not notice it, but when we did it was too late. We were becoming a city of monsters. And the force we had used was worse than useless,

  for the more we tried to mold the monstrous flesh to its normal shape, the more the stimulated cells grew and grew, until the bodies we labored over were like things of wet mud that flow and change even as you look at them.

  “One by one the people of the city destroyed themselves. And those of us who were left realized the judgment of the gods, and our duty. We made all things ready, and let the Red Sea hide us forever from our own kind, and those who should come after.

  “Yet we did not destroy our knowledge. Perhaps it was our pride only that forbade us, but we could not bring ourselves to do it. Perhaps other gods, other races wiser than we, can take away the evil and keep only the good. For it is good for all creatures to be, if not perfect, at least strong and sound.

  “But heed this warning, whoever you may be that listen. If your gods are jealous, if your people have not the wisdom or the knowledge to succeed where we failed in controlling this force, then touch it not! Or you, and all your people, will become as I.”

  The voice stopped. Stark moved back again, and said to Treon incredulously, “And your family would ignore that warning?” Treon laughed. “They are fools. They are cruel and greedy and very proud. They would say that this was a lie to frighten away intruders, or that human flesh would not be subject to the laws that govern the flesh of reptiles. They would say anything, because they have dreamed this dream too long to be denied.”

  Stark shuddered and looked at the black door. “The thing ought to be destroyed.”

  “Yes,” said Treon softly.

  His eyes were shining, looking into some private dream of his own. He started forward, and when Stark would have gone with him he thrust him back, saying, “No. You have no part in this.” He shook his head.

  “I have waited,” he whispered, almost to himself. “The winds bade me wait, until the day was ripe to fall from the tree of death. I have waited, and at dawn I knew, for the wind said, ‘Now is the gathering of the fruit at hand.’ “

  He looked suddenly at Stark, and his eyes had in them a clear sanity, for all their feyness.

  “You heard, Stark. ‘We made those stand tall and straight who came crooked from the egg.’ I will have my hour. I will stand as a man for the little time that is left.”

  He turned, and Static made no move to follow. He watched Treon’s twisted body recede, white against the red dusk, until it passed the monstrous watcher and came to the black door. The long thin arms reached up and pushed the bar away.

  The door swung slowly back. Through the opening Stark glimpsed a chamber that held a structure of crystal rods and discs mounted on a frame of metal, the whole thing glowing and glittering with a restless bluish light that dimmed and brightened as though it echoed some vast pulse-beat. There was. other apparatus, intricate banks of tubes and condensers, but this was the heart of it, and the heart was still alive.

  Treon passed within and closed the door behind him.

  Stark chew back some distance from the door and its guardian, crouched down, and set his back against the wall. He thought about the apparatus. Cosmic rays, perhaps—the unseen force that came from beyond the sky. Even yet, all their potentialities were not known. But a few luckless spacemen had found that under certain conditions they could do amazing things to human tissue.

  It was a line of thought Stark did not like at all. He tried to keep his mind away from Treon entirely. He tried not to think at all. It was dark there in the corridor, and very still, and the shapeless horror sat quiet in the doorway and waited with him. Stark began to shiver, a shallow animal-twitching of the flesh.

  He waited. After a while he thought Treon must be dead, but he did not move. He did not wish to go into that room to see.

  He waited.

  Suddenly he leaped up, cold sweat bursting out all over him. A crash had echoed down the corridor, a clashing of shattered crystal and a high singing note that trailed off into nothing.

  The door opened.

  A man came out. A man tall and straight and beautiful as an angel, a strong-limbed man with Treon’s face, Treon’s tragic eyes. And behind him the chamber was dark. The pulsing heart of power had stopped.

  The door was shut and barred again. Treon’s voice was saying. “There are records left, and much of the apparatus, so that the secret is not lost entirely. Only it is out of reach.”

  He came to Stark and held out his hand. “Let us fight together, as men. And do n
ot fear. I shall die, long before this body changes.” He smiled, the remembered smile that was full of pity for all living things. “I know, for the winds have told me.”

  Stark took his hand and held it.

  “Good,” said Treon. “And now lead on, stranger with the fierce eyes. For the prophecy is yours, and the day is yours, and I who have crept about like a snail all my life know little of battles. Lead, and I will follow.”

  Stark fingered the collar around his neck. “Can you rid me of this?”

  Treon nodded. “There are tools and acid in one of the chambers.”

  He found them, and worked swiftly, and while he worked Stark thought, smiling—and there was no pity in that smile at all.

  They came back at last into the temple, and Treon closed the entrance to the catacombs. It was still night, for the square was empty of slaves. Stark found Egil’s weapon where it had fallen, on the ledge where Egil died.

  “We must hurry,” said Stark. “Come on.”

  CHAPTER XI

  The island was shrouded heavily in mist and the blue darkness of the night. Stark and Treon crept silently among the rocks until they could see the glimmer of torchlight through the window-slits of the power station.

  There were seven guards, five inside the blockhouse, two outside to patrol.

  When they were close enough, Stark slipped away, going like a shadow, and never a pebble turned under his bare foot. Presently he found a spot to his liking and crouched down. A sentry went by not three feet away, yawning and looking hopefully at the sky for the first signs of dawn.

  Treon’s voice rang out, the sweet unmistakable voice. “Ho, there, guards!”

  The sentry stopped and whirled around. Off around the curve of the stone wall someone began to run, his sandals thud-thudding on the soft ground, and the second guard came up.

  “Who speaks?” one demanded. “The Lord Treon?”

  They peered into the darkness, and Treon answered, “Yes.” He had come forward far enough so that they could make out the pale blur of his face, keeping his body out of sight among the rocks and the shrubs that sprang up between them.

  “Make haste,” he ordered. “Bid them open the door, there.” He spoke in breathless jerks, as though spent. “A tragedy—a disaster! Bid them open!”

  One of the men leaped to obey, hammering on the massive door that was kept barred from the inside. The other stood goggle-eyed, watching. Then the door opened, spilling a flood of yellow torchlight into the red fog.

  “What is it?” cried the men inside. “What has happened?”

  “Come out!” gasped Treon. “My cousin is dead, the Lord Egil is dead, murdered by a slave.”

  He let that sink in. Three or more men came outside into the circle of light, and their faces were frightened, as though somehow they feared they might be held responsible for this thing.

  “You know him,” said Treon. “The great black-haired one from Earth. He has slain the Lord Egil and got away into the forest, and we need all extra guards to go after him, since many must be left to guard the other slaves, who are mutinous. You, and you—” He picked out the four biggest ones. “Go at once and join the search. I will stay here with the others.”

  It nearly worked. The four took a hesitant step or two, and then one paused and said doubtfully, “But, my lord, it is forbidden that we leave our posts, for any reason. Any reason at all, my lord! The Lord Cond would slay us if we left this place.”

  “And you fear the Lord Cond more than you do me,” said Treon philosophically. “Ah, well. I understand.”

  He stepped out, full into the light.

  A gasp went up, and then a startled yell. The three men from inside had come out armed only with swords, but the two sentries had their shock-weapons. One of them shrieked, “It is a demon, who speaks with Treon’s voice!”

  And the two black weapons started up.

  Behind them, Stark fired two silent bolts in quick succession, and the men fell, safely out of the way for hours. Then he leaped for the door.

  He collided with two men who were doing the same thing. The third had turned to hold Treon off with his sword until they were safely inside.

  Seeing that Treon, who was unarmed, was in danger of being spitted on the man’s point. Stark fired between the two lunging bodies as he fell, and brought the guard down. Then he was involved in a thrashing tangle of arms and legs, and a lucky blow jarred the shock-weapon out of his hand.

  Treon added himself to the fray. Pleasuring in his new strength, he caught one man by the neck and pulled him off. The guards were big men, and powerful, and they fought desperately. Stark was bruised and bleeding from a cut mouth before he could get in a finishing blow.

  Someone rushed past him into the doorway. Treon yelled. Out of the tail of his eyes Stark saw the Lhari sitting dazed on the ground. The door was closing.

  Stark hunched up his shoulders and sprang.

  He hit the heavy panel with a jar that nearly knocked him breathless. It slammed open, and there was a cry of pain and the sound of someone falling. Stark burst through, to find the last of the guards rolling every which way over the floor. But one rolled over onto his feet again, drawing his sword as he rose. He had not had time before.

  Stark continued his rush without stopping. He plunged headlong into the man before the point was clear of the scabbard, bore him over and down, and finished the man off with savage efficiency.

  He leaped to his feet, breathing hard, spitting blood out of his mouth, and looked around the control room. But the others had fled, obviously to raise the warning.

  The mechanism was simple. It was contained in a large black metal oblong about the size and shape of a coffin, equipped with grids and lenses and dials. It hummed softly to itself, but what its source of power was Stark did not know. Perhaps those same cosmic rays, harnessed to a different use.

  He closed what seemed to be a master switch, and the humming stopped, and the flickering light died out of the lenses. He picked up the slain guard’s sword and carefully wrecked everything that was breakable. Then he went outside again.

  Treon was standing up, shaking his head. He smiled ruefully.

  “It seems that strength alone is not enough,” he said. “One must have skill as well.”

  “The barriers are down,” said Stark. “The way is clear.”

  Treon nodded, and went with him back into die sea. This time both carried shock weapons taken from the guards—six in all, with Egil’s. Total armament for war.

  As they forged swiftly through the red depths, Stark asked, “What of the people of Shuruun? How will they fight?”

  Treon answered, “Those of Malthor’s breed will stand for the Lhari. They must, for all their hope is there. The others will wait, until they see which side is safest. They would rise against the Lhari if they dared, for we have brought them only fear in their lifetimes. But they will wait, and see.”

  Stark nodded. He did not speak again.

  They passed over the brooding city, and Stark thought of Egil and of Malthor who were part of that silence now, drifting slowly through the empty streets where the little currents took them, wrapped in their shrouds of dim fire.

  He thought of Zareth sleeping in the hall of kings, and his eyes held a cold, cruel light.

  They swooped down over the slave barracks. Treon remained on watch outside. Stark went in, taking with him the extra weapons.

  The slaves still slept. Some of them dreamed, and moaned in their dreaming, and others might have been dead, with their hollow faces white as skulls.

  Slaves. One hundred and four, counting the women.

  Stark shouted out to them, and they woke, starting up on their pallets, their eyes full of terror. Then they saw who it was that called them, standing collarless and armed, and there was a great surging and a clamor that stilled as Stark shouted again, demanding silence. This time Helvi’s voice echoed his. The tall barbarian had wakened from his drugged sleep.

  Stark told them, v
ery briefly, all that happened.

  “You are freed from the collar,” he said. “This day you can survive or die as men, and not slaves.” He paused, then asked, “Who will go with me into Shuruun?”

  They answered with one voice, the voice of the Lost Ones, who saw the red pall of death to lift from over them. The Lost Ones, who had found hope again.

  Stark laughed. He was happy. He gave the extra weapons to Helvi and three others that he chose, and Helvi looked into his eyes and laughed too.

  Treon spoke from the open door. “They are coming!”

  Stark gave Helvi quick instructions and darted out, taking with him one of the other men. With Treon, they hid among the shrubbery of the garden that was outside the hall, patterned and beautiful, swaying its lifeless brilliance in the lazy drifts of fire.

  The guards came. Twenty of them, tall armed men, to turn out the slaves for another period of labor, dragging the useless stones.

  And the hidden weapons spoke with their silent tongues.

  Eight of the guards fell inside the hall. Nine of them went down outside. Ten of the slaves died with blazing collars before the remaining three were overcome.

  Now there were twenty swords among ninety-four slaves, counting the women.

  They left the city and rose up over the dreaming forest, a flight of white ghosts with flames in their hair, coming back from the red dusk and the silence to find the light again.

  Light, and vengeance.

  The first pale glimmer of dawn was sifting through the clouds as they came up among the rocks below the castle of the Lhari. Stark left them and went like a shadow up the tumbled cliffs to where he had hidden his gun on the night he had first come to Shuruun. Nothing stirred. The fog lifted up from the sea like a vapor of blood, and the face of Venus was still dark. Only the high clouds were touched with pearl.

  Stark returned to the others. He gave one of his shockweapons to a swamp-lander with a cold madness in his eyes. Then he spoke a few final words to Helvi and went back with Treon under the surface of the sea.

  Treon led the way. He went along the face of the submerged cliff, and presently he touched Stark’s arm and pointed to where a round mouth opened in the rock.