by Lee Brackett
his red mouth smiled. His thoughts, too, were his own secret. But Stark knew that he was still watching her, and she knew that Delgauna was aware of it.
Presently Kynyn said, 'Delgauna and I have some talking to do, so I'll bid you gentlemen farewell for the present. You, Stark, and Luhara – I'm going back into the desert at midnight, and you're going with me, so you'd better get some sleep.'
Stark nodded. She rose and went out, with the others.
An attendant showed her to her quarters, in the north wing. Stark had not rested for twenty-four hours, and she was glad of the chance to sleep.
She lay down. The wine spun in her head, and Berild's smile mocked her. Then her thoughts turned to Ashton, and her promise. Presently she slept, and dreamed.
She was a girl on Mercury again, running down a path that led from a cave mouth to the floor of a valley. Above her the mountains rose into the sky and were lost beyond the shallow atmosphere. The rocks danced in the terrible heat, but the soles of her feet were like iron, and trod them lightly. She was quite naked.
The blaze of the sun between the valley walls was like the shining heart of Hell. It did not seem to the girl N'Chaka that it could ever be cold again, yet she knew that when darkness came there would be ice on the shallows of the river. The gods were constantly at war.
She passed a place, ruined by earthquake. It was a mine, and N'Chaka remembered dimly that she had once lived there, with several white-skinned creatures shaped like herself. She went on without a second glance.
She was searching for Tika. When she was old enough, she would mate with him. She wanted to hunt with his now, for he was fleet and as keen as she at scenting out the great lizards.
She heard his voice calling her name. There was terror in it, and N'Chaka began to run. She saw him, crouched between two huge boulders, his light fur stained with blood.
A vast black-winged shadow swooped down upon her. It glared at her with its yellow eyes, and its long beak tore at her. She thrust her spear at it, but talons hooked into her shoulder, and the golden eyes were close to her, bright and full of death.
She knew those eyes. Tika screamed, but the sound faded, everything faded but those eyes. She sprang up, grappling with the thing ...
A woman's voice yelling, a woman's hands thrusting her away. The dream receded. Stark came back to reality, dropping the scared attendant who had come to waken her.
The woman cringed away from her. Delgauna sent me. She wants you – in the council room.' Then she turned and fled.
Stark shook herself. The dream had been terribly real. She went down to the council room. It was dusk now, and the torches were lighted.
Delgauna was waiting, and Berild sat beside her at the table. They were alone there. Delgauna looked up, with her golden eyes.
'I have a job for you, Stark,' she said. 'You remember the captain of Kynyn's women, in the square today?'
'I do.'
'Her name is Freka, and she's a good woman, but she's addicted to a certain vice. She'll be up to her ears in it by now, and somebody has to get her back by the time Kynyn leaves. Will you see to it?'
Stark glanced at Berild. It seemed to her that he was amused, whether at her or at Delgauna she could not tell. She asked,
'Where will I find her?'
'There's only one place where she can get her particular poison – Kale's, out on the edge of Valkis. It's in the old city, beyond the lower quays.' Delgauna smiled. 'You may have to be ready with your fists, Stark. Freka may not want to come.'
Stark hesitated. Then, 'I'll do my best,' she said, and went out into the dusky streets of Valkis.
She crossed a square, heading away from the palace. A twisting lane swallowed her up. And quite suddenly, someone took her arm and said rapidly.
'Smile at me, and then turn aside into the alley.'
The hand on her arm was small and brown, the voice very pretty with its accompaniment of little chiming bells. She smiled, as he had bade her, and turned aside into the alley, which was barely more than a crack between two rows of houses.
Swiftly, she put her hands against the wall, so that the boy was prisoned between them. A green-eyed boy, with golden bells braided in his black hair, and impudent pectorals bare above a jewelled girdle. A handsome boy, with a proud look to him.
The serving boy who had stood beside the litter in the square, and had watched Kynyn with such bleak hatred.
'Well,' said Stark. 'And what do you want with me, little one?'
He answered, 'My name is Fian. And I do not intend to kill you, neither will I run away.'
Stark let her hands drop. 'Did you follow me, Fian?'
'I did. Delgauna's palace is full of hidden ways, and I know them all. I was listening behind the panel in the council room. I heard you speak out against Kynyn, and I heard Delgauna's order, just now.'
'So?'
'So, if you meant what you said about the tribes, you had better get away now, while you have the chance. Kynyn lied to you. She will use you, and then kill you, as she will use and then destroy her own people.' His voice was hot with bitter fury.
Stark gave his a slow smile that might have meant anything, or nothing.
'You're a Valkisian, Fian. What do you care what happens to the barbarians?'
His slightly tilted green eyes looked scornfully into hers.
'I'm not trying to trap you, Earthwoman. I hate Kynyn. And my fathers was a man of the desert.'
He paused, then went on sombrely, 'Also, I serve the sir Berild, and I have learned many things. There is trouble coming, greater trouble than Kynyn knows.' He asked, suddenly, 'What do you know of the Ramas?'
'Nothing,' she answered, 'except that they don't exist now, if they ever did.'
Fian gave her an odd look. 'Perhaps they don't. Will you listen to me, Earthwoman from Mercury? Will you get away, now that you know you're marked for death?'
Stark said, 'No.'
'Even if I tell you that Delgauna has set a trap for you at Kale's?'
'No. But I will thank you for your warning, Fian.'
She bent and kissed him, because he was very young and honest. Then she turned and went on her way.
5
Night came swiftly. Stark left behind her the torches and the laughter and the sounding harps, coming into the streets of the old city where there was nothing but silence and the light of the low moons.
She saw the lower quays, great looming shapes of marble rounded and worn by time, and went toward them. Presently she found that she was following a faint but definite path, threaded between the ancient houses. It was very still, so that the dry whisper of the drifting dust was audible.
She passed under the shadow of the quays, and turned into a broad way that had once led up from the harbour. A little way ahead, on the other side, she saw a tall building, half fallen in ruin. Its windows were shattered, barred with light, and from it came the sound of voices and a thin thread of music, very reedy and evil.
Stark approached it, slipping through the ragged shadows as though she had no more weight to her than a drift of smoke. Once a door banged and a woman came out of Kale's and passed by, going down to Valkis. Stark saw her face in the moonlight. It was the face of a beast, rather than a woman. She muttered to herself as she went, and once she laughed, and Stark felt a loathing in her.
She waited until the sound of footsteps had died away. The ruined houses gave no sign of danger. A lizard rustled between the stones, and that was all. The moonlight lay bright and still on Kale's door.
Stark found a little shard of rock and tossed it, so that it make a sharp snicking sound against the shadowed wall beyond her. Then she held her breath, listening.
No one, nothing, stirred. Only the dry wind sighed in the empty houses.
Stark went out, across the open space, and nothing happened. She flung open the door of Kale's dive.
Yellow light spilled out, and a choking wave of hot and stuffy air. Inside, there were tall lamps with quartz lenses, each of which po
ured down a beam of throbbing, gold-orange light. And in the little pools of radiance, on filthy furs and cushions on the floor, lay women and men whose faces were slack and bestial.
Stark realized now what secret vice Kale sold here. Shanga – the going back – the radiation that caused temporary artificial atavism and let women wallow for a time in beasthood. It was supposed to have been stamped out when the Sir Fand's dark Shanga ring had been destroyed. But it still persisted, in places like thim outside the law.
She looked for Freka, and recognized the tall barbarian. She was sprawled under one of the Shanga lamps, eyes closed, face brutish, growling and twitching in sleep like the beast she had temporarily become.
A voice spoke from behind Stark's shoulder. 'I am Kale. What do you wish, Outlander?'
She turned. Kale might have been beautiful once, a thousand years ago as you reckon sin. He wore still the sweet chiming bells in his hair, and Stark thought of Fian. The man's ravaged face turned her sick. It was like the reedy, piping music, woven out of the very heart of evil.
Yet his eyes were shrewd, and she knew that he had not missed her searching look around the room, nor her interest in Freka. There was a note of warning in his voice.
She did not want trouble, yet. Not until she found some hint of the trap Fian had told her of.
She said, 'Bring me wine.'
Will you try the lamp of Going-back, Outlander? It brings much joy.'
'Perhaps later. Now, I wish wine.'
He went away, clapping his hands for a slatternly boy who came between the sprawled figures with an earthern mug. Stark sat down beside