by Lin Carter
For breakfast they toasted thick slices of the tunafish-tree over a small fire which Brant touched to smoldering with a thin, quick beam from his power gun. It was even more delicious than it had been the “evening” before.
They were going to have to invent new terms for such familiar words as morning, afternoon, night and evening, for these words did not apply to this weird and wonderful world that lay dreaming like Paradise, bathed in a pearly light like that of the morning of the First Day.
After breakfast, Harbin and Brant set about rigging up a crude still in which to boil the impurities out of the seawater. It was not an easy job, for they lacked the proper utensils, but they found at length that their makeshift still worked well enough, although it was a lengthy and boring process, waiting for the steam from the boiling water to condense into enough pure water for them to sate their thirsts.
Brant and Zuarra had few words for each other, but their eyes met frequently and very often they touched, with a pretense of casualness. Agila and Suoli only had eyes for each other and hardly seemed to notice. As for the old scientist, he chattered volubly, if only to fill the silence.
Later that day, Brant caught a dragonfly napping and killed the creature with Agila’s knife, which he had not returned to him since their brief fist-fight many days before. Harbin examined the creature with alert curiosity, dissecting it with the knife. The bowie-like blade was unsuited to such delicate work, but Harbin did the best he could. He found that the tubular body contained a sizable quantity of meat, which he toasted over the smoldering coals of their fire.
When the others proved a bit too squeamish to taste the stuff, he sampled it himself. “Tastes quite a bit like escargot,” he pronounced, chewing judiciously. “A slice of lemon would help; but it’s not bad. Well, now we know that when we get tired
of eating from the mushroom-trees, we can vary our diet
somewhat.
“Think there’s any fish in the ocean, Doc?” asked Brant.
“Doubt it very much. There are none to be found in Great Salt Lake or the Dead Sea, either. And this underground ocean is saltier than both.”
That “night” after the travelers dined on more mushroom-meat, and sought their rest, Zuarra and Brant stole away into the forest to make love. It was richer and deeper this third time, the hungry wanting somewhat satisfied. They lacked the urgency they had felt before, and took the time to explore each other’s bodies with sensitivity and tenderness.
“How long do we intend to remain in this strange world, O Brant?” Zuarra asked, after the loving, as they lay together with naked limbs entwined.
“Who knows?” he yawned. “Until the outlaws go away, I guess. But it’s not a bad place to be. Warm, comfortable, plenty of food. And if there are any predators down here, we’ve yet to see them.”
They kissed, and drowsed into sleep.
And awoke suddenly with lances touching their throats.
It had taken Tuan and his men less time to get down the stony stair than it had taken Brant’s party, for they were all lean and rangy men, hard and tough, while Brant had been slowed somewhat by the women, especially little Suoli.
But they had come at last. And Brant wondered if they had already captured the others, and cursed himself silently for having left his power guns behind with his clothing. But who could have thought that he might need his guns in this peaceful garden?
I should have thought, he said grimly to himself. After all, he had known there was a very good chance the outlaws might follow them down the stair. He inwardly cursed himself for letting the beauty of this place and the marvels within it, and the woman who lay at his side, lull him away from his usual wariness. Well, there was never any good crying over spilt milk���or blood, either.
A booted foot kicked him in the side. He gave voice to an involuntary grunt and would have sprung to his feet, but for the long lance level with his breast.
One of the outlaws, a villanous-looking rogue with cold, mean eyes as unblinking as those of a cobra, grinned, revealing broken and discolored teeth, and pressed with the lance a little.
The point just broke his skin. Brant felt a drop of blood trickle down his bare chest.
He exchanged a long look with Zuarra. Her face was expressionless and there was no fear in her eyes as she looked at him. But they were lying so close together that he could feel how rapidly her heart was beating beneath her proud breasts.
Yes, the Serpent was in Eden, at last… .
“Let them rise to their feet,” ordered Tuan, “and lead them back to where the other dogs are penned. Bind their wrists behind their backs.” He stalked away toward the place where, presumably, Harbin and the others were held prisoner.
Brant watched with a heavy heart as the men bound Zuarra. Oddly, they did not insult her body with their hands. Instead, they looked her naked body over from face to feet with cool, appraising eyes. They wore not the expression of men whose minds were lingering on thoughts of rape. Instead, they examined her with their eyes as if looking over something that could be sold for a good price.
19
The Flying Man
Looking weary, Will Harbin lay on the moss with two warriors standing over him.
Whimpering and blubbering, Suoli, similarly bound, cowered at the feet of another warrior, while Agila sprawled naked, eyes wide with fear, a little beyond where his woman was huddled.
They had all been taken unawares. And Brant silently damned himself for not having taken the proper precautions which would have prevented this debacle. He was too old a Mars hand to be caught like this, quite literally, napping.
When the five captives had all been bound, Tuan surveyed them one by one, with hard, measuring eyes. He was a tall rascal, his kilt unmarked by the colors of his nation, which, of course, showed that he was aoudh���an outcast. But the blood of princes flowed in his veins, and you could see it in his stance, in the ramrod-straightness wherewith he held himself, and in something of the poise of his head.
He strolled over to where Agila crouched, licking lips dry with fear, and nudged the naked man in the ribs with the toe of his boot.
“Dog, it was you who stole from me the sacred dish of my ancestors,” he hissed between thin lips. “Not only did you commit the crime of theft from one who had shown you the hospitality of his camp, but you fled from justice like a coward in the dark.”
Agila lowered his eyes to the ground, his lean, bony face surly and his eyes sullen. But he again licked his dry lips.
Tuan eyed the man contemptuously, then kicked him in the ribs. Agila cried out, and fell on his side.
“For your ending,” purred Tuan, “we shall devise something interesting and novel. Perhaps we shall be able to outdo Kohharin himself,” he added, in reference to an ancient and legendary king mentioned in The Book, whose name had become renowned for the ingenuity of the torments which he had of old inflicted upon his enemies.
Then Tuan turned to survey the two naked women. “Of you, I know nothing, and will be charitable,” he said. “Your bodies will be sold in Ahour, perhaps to a pleasure-house, and it shall be your fate to open your thighs to men that are not of your choosing!”
Brant growled and bristled at those words. Tuan turned his head and looked at him, and at Harbin.
“As for you, f’yagha, you have befouled the treasure of my princely ancestors with your eyes and your outworlder touch. As well, you abetted this dog in his flight, and aided him with your wits, your guns, and your water. His fate shall be your fate, while the world lasts!”
Then he strode away to confer with one or two of the other men of his band, leaving his prisoners alone with their thoughts. And bitter, lonely thoughts they were… .
The outlaw chieftain inspected their garments and gear idly, finding little that pleased him save their guns. Energy weapons were prized possessions among the People, as Brant knew very well. After all, in leaner times, he had run guns to the native princelings, himself.
The
“morning” wore on. Under close guard, the captives were left bound and helpless. Brapt surreptitiously tested his bonds, but they were too tough, and too cunningly tied, for even his burly strength to loosen, much less to snap.
He watched Tuan carefully. Even though the chieftain had been the keeper of the pale gold dish with its engraved ancient map, he was obviously as puzzled and impressed at discovering this subterranean cavern world as had been the members of Brant’s party. Obviously, to him the dish had simply been a precious relic of the past, an heirloom, a family treasure, nothing more.
He measured Tuan’s warriors with thoughtful eyes. They were a lean and hungry band of ruffians, men without a clan, hardened by the lifelong struggle to survive in the hostile wilderness of desert Mars, and probably accustomed to every crime he could think of, and a few more that he couldn’t.
They were hard riders, excellent trackers, and, as he knew from the brief battle at the mouth of the cave, dangerous and veteran warriors. They were also heavily armed. About half of the fourteen were armed with laser rifles, the others with power guns, and all of them had knives���the long-bladed, heavy, deadly Martian knives they called s’zouks. As efficient and dangerous a weapon, in skilled and practiced hands, as had been the bowie knives on the American frontier.
And he had no doubt that all of these desert wolves were well practiced in using them. …
Even if he had been able to get his hands loose, they were too wary to be taken by surprise, and there were too many of them for him to hope to fight, with even the slightest chances of success.
He also noticed���with bitter amusement���that their bristling store of weaponry had newly been augmented by the twin laser rifles which Doc Harbin and his native scout had held when Brant and the women first encountered them, as well as Brant’s own pair of power pistols, and even the long knife Agila had carried in his boot.
What was needed here���he thought wryly���was some sort of a diversion to distract the outlaws just long enough for the five prisoners to struggle to their feet (for the outlaws had not bound their captives’ ankles, for some reason, perhaps being short of ropes). Then, with any luck, they could all hightail it into the depths of the fungus-forest, and, with a little more luck, find places to hide in whatever sort of terrain might lie on the far side of the grove.
Once safe, at least relatively, they could in time chew through each other’s bonds and be off. Although off to where, Brant had no idea. A diversion… .
Brant uttered a mirthless chuckle. Well, the sudden appearance of a hungry dinosaur about the height of a two-story building would be adequate! A charging herd of woolly mammoths would come in handy. Brant would even have settled for a hunting-pack of sabertooth tigers, if any were available.
He rather doubted that they were, though. He had yet to see any wildlife bigger than a couple of outsized dragonflies, and these seemed harmless enough.
He leaned back as comfortably as he could, and closed his eyes, resting himself and conserving his strength for whatever opportunity, to make a break for it might, but probably would not, occur.
When he opened his eyes again it was because the sea breeze had wafted to his nostrils the scent of burning fungus-stalks. Tuan and his band had started a bonfire, touching off the dry, fibrous stuff even as Brant had earlier, with a touch of needle-beam. The stuff burned like tinder.
Brant narrowed his eyes. The desert warriors were rigging a makeshift spit over the fire, using their metal spears. As they did so, they grinned and chuckled among themselves, for all the world like a passel of Apaches about to scalp a few White Eyes. They glanced occasionally at their captives, and the expression in their eyes was cruel and gloating.
Brant shot a glance at Agila. The lean rogue was wide-eyed and panting in fear, and Brant didn’t blame him.
The outlaws obviously intended to roast the poor bastard over a slow fire, Brant grimly guessed. And his stomach-muscles knotted in sympathy.
For he and Will Harbin would probably be second course, once Agila had died screaming, burned to a crisp, as the saying goes. The women would be sold into slavery in the slave markets of the nearest city of the People, once the chieftain had led his band back up the stony stair to the surface.
Time was running out, although it would take Agila hours to die, if Tuan and his warriors did the job properly, and in those interminable, grisly hours before it was his and Doc’s turn for the torture, anything at all might happen.
Brant rather wished he had been a religious man, for if so, he could have prayed right then and there, without cowardly hypocrisy. Because if anybody ever needed a miracle to happen, it was him and his companions… .
Jesting obscenely among themselves, the outlaws strolled over to where Agila crouched in terror, and lifted him to his feet, and began to truss him to one of the spear-shafts. These lances were of metal, of course, not wood, for wood is virtually unknown on the Desert World. The heat of the metal shaft along his back, shoulders and buttocks would add a certain extra something to Agila’s agony, once they began to turn him slowly over on the makeshift spit over the roaring fire.
Brant looked at his companions. Suoli lay huddled facedown in the moss, blubbering hysterically, her entire body shaking convulsively as she sobbed and shuddered.
Will Harbin’s face was grave but composed, and the older man’s eyes were closed and his lips moved slightly in prayer, perhaps.
Then he looked at Zuarra, seated beside him on the moss with her ankles crossed tailor-fashion. She held herself proudly, her spine as straight as an arrow. Her eyes were stony, her lips tight, her expression aloof.
God, she was a brave woman, Brant thought. He had never known a braver!
She turned to meet his gaze, her eyes calm and level and unfaltering. Their eyes locked.
And in that moment he realized that he loved her, and she read it in his face and smiled.
20
The Flying Boy
The outlaws lifted the spear to which Agila was securely bound onto the supports they had rigged over the bonfire for their makeshift spit. As the heat smote him���face, breast, belly and thighs���he squeezed his eyes shut and clamped his lips together tightly, screwing up his face, and letting no sound escape him.
Tuan watched appraisingly, a slight smile playing about his lips.
“O, brave and braver still is the skulking thief in the night!” he exclaimed tauntingly. “But the courageous silence of the dog Agila will not last very long … soon will he writhe and wriggle on the spit. And then a whimper or a gasp will come … and then, mayhap, some weeping or crying out. It will perhaps be half a kua, mayhap a trifle less, before the screaming will commence. And it will be happy music to the ears of Tuan!”
Half a kua was a measurement of Martian time the equivalent to about ten minutes, Brant knew. He rather agreed with Tuan’s estimate of how long Agila could hold his tongue.
And then it happened.
Tuan glanced up suddenly, in the direction of the hills, and his eyes widened in amazement and disbelief. He uttered a harsh croak, an involuntary cry.
Behind Brant, Will Harbin cried out, “Good God!” in a shaky voice.
And Brant himself looked up.
There came hurtling through the air toward their camp, heading inland from the sea, a Flying Boy.
He was lithe and naked, pale golden, hairless. And he bore in one fist a long, glittering lance.
At first glimpse, it seemed to them all that he was winged. But then, as he flashed down upon them, scattering the outlaws into howling flight, they saw that he was mounted between the flickering, thrumming wings of a gigantic dragonfly.
It was obviously akin to the flying things they had seen in the fungus-forest, one of which Brant had slain with the knife, and Doc had cooked and sampled its meat.
But that one was only as long as Brant’s arm. This fantastic creature was the length of a six-man canoe, and its glittering wings of sheeted opal must ha
ve a forty-foot spread.
As his amazing steed flashed by overhead, the golden youth leaned from the saddle���for now Brant had a closer look, he observed that he was strapped into a high saddle woven, it seemed, of wicker. With the flat head of his lance, he caught Agila in the ribs, with a blow just strong enough to push the whole spit-contraption over into the moss beyond the fire.
Agila flopped, wriggled, gasping, rubbing his blistered parts against the cool, damp moss.
Brant got clumsily to his feet, and stood staring skywards. The aerial knight soared by overhead, banked in a sharp turn, and came about for another pass at them. He bent over to peer at them, and Brant noticed only that his eyes were glinting amber, and that he was quite young, long-legged, smoothly built, and so strikingly handsome as almost to be worthy of being called beautiful, although in a boyish way.
Brant nudged Zuarra with his foot.
“Up girl! Run for it. Doc! Suoli���stop your blubbering! On your feet, all of you���make for the grove!”
Zuarra and Will Harbin, at least, instantly understood Brant’s notion. While the outlaw band scattered in witless terror, like jackrabbits startled by a hunting hawk, they could lose themselves in the forest.
With Zuarra loping along at his side, Brant broke into a clumsy staggering run for the edge of the clearing. Then, several things happened so quickly, that ever after it was tough for him to sort them out in sequence.
Suddenly, to his dazed eyes, the sky was filled with naked golden children mounted on enormous dragonflies. There must have been a couple of dozen of them, perhaps twice that number. Uttering shrill, exuberant cries and brandishing their glittering lances, they wheeled in tight formation over the clearing.
Then Will Harbin cried out for help. A coil of braided rope settled about his shoulders, bringing him to a halt; another caught him about the hips. Yelling and kicking, he was dragged off his feet and into the air.