Red beard—a Persian out of that time when Persia’s hordes were to the world what later the Roman legions were to be. Or so Kenton judged him by his tunic of linked light mail, the silken-sheathed legs, the high buskins and the curved daggers and the scimitar in his jewelled belt. And human as Kenton himself. About him was none of the charnel flavor of Klaneth nor the grotesqueness of Gigi. The full red lips beneath the carefully trimmed beard were sensual, life loving; the body was burly and muscular; the face whiter than Kenton’s own. But it was sullen and stamped deep with a half-resigned, half-desperate boredom that even his lively and frank curiosity about Kenton lightened little.
In front of him was a wide slab of bloodstone. Six priests knelt upon it, worshipping something that stood within a niche just above the slab. What it was he could not tell—except that it breathed out evil. A little larger than a man, the thing within the niche was black and formless as though made of curdling shadows. It quivered, pulsated—as though the shadows that were its substance thickened constantly about it, passed within it and were replaced swiftly by others.
Dark was that cabin, the walls somber as dull black marble. Other shadows clung to the dark walls and clustered in the corners; shadows that seemed only to await command to deepen into substance.
Unholy shadows—like those that clothed the thing within the niche.
Beyond, as in the cabin of Sharane, was another chamber, and crowding at the door between were a dozen or more of the black-robed, white-faced priests.
“Go to your places,” Klaneth turned to them, breaking the silence. They slipped away. The black priest closed the door upon them. He touched the nearest of the kneeling priests with his foot.
“Our Lord Nergal has had enough of worship,” he said. “See—he has swallowed your prayers!”
Kenton looked at the thing within the niche. It was no longer misty, shadowed. It stood out, clear cut. Its body was that of a man and its face was that same awesome visage of evil into which he had seen the black priest’s turn on that first adventure of his upon the ship.
The face of Nergal—Lord of the Dead!
What had been the curdled, quivering shades enveloping the statue?
He felt the eyes of Klaneth searching him, covertly. A trick! A trick to frighten him. He met the black priest’s gaze squarely; smiled.
The Persian laughed.
“Hai, Klaneth,” he said. “There was a bolt that fell short. Mayhap this stranger has seen such things before. Mayhap he is a sorcerer himself and can do better things. Change your play, Klaneth.”
He yawned and seated himself upon a low settle. The black priest’s face grew grimmer.
“Best be silent, Zubran,” he said. “Else it may be that Nergal will change his play for you in a way to banish forever your disbelief.”
“Disbelief?” echoed the Persian. “Oh, Nergal is real enough. It is not disbelief that irks me. It is the eternal monotony. Can you do nothing new, Klaneth? Can Nergal do nothing new? Change his play for me, eh? By Ahriman—that is just what I wish he would do, if he can.”
He yawned again, ostentatiously. The black priest growled; turned to the six worshippers.
“Go,” he ordered, “and send Zachel to me.”
They filed through the outer door. The black priest dropped upon another settle, studying Kenton; the drummer squatted, also watching him; the Persian muttered to himself, playing with his dagger hilts. The door opened and into the cabin stepped a priest who held in one hand a long whip whose snaky lash, metal topped, was curled many times around his forearm. He bowed before Klaneth.
Kenton recognized him. When he had lain on the deck close to the mast he had seen this man sitting on a high platform at the foot of that mast. Overseer of the galley slaves, the oarsmen, was Zachel, and that long lash was measured to flick the furtherest of them if they lagged.
“Is this he whom you saw upon the deck some sleeps ago?” asked Klaneth. “He who lay there and, you say, vanished when the drab of Ishtar yonder bent over to touch him?”
“He is the same, master,” answered the overseer, coming close to Kenton and scanning him.
“Where went he then?” asked Klaneth, more to himself than to the other. “To Sharane’s cabin? But if so, why did she drive him out, her cats clawing him? And whence came that sword she waved and bade him come retake? I know that sword—”
“He did not go into her cabin at that time, master,” interrupted Zachel. “I saw her seek for him. She went back to her place alone. He had vanished.”
“And his driving forth,” mused Klaneth, “that was two sleeps ago. And the ship has sailed far since then. We saw him struggling in the waves far behind us. Yet here he is upon the ship again—and with his wounds still fresh, still bleeding as though it had been but a moment gone. And how passed he the barrier? Yea—how passed he the barrier?”
“Ah, at last you have stumbled on a real question,” cried the Persian. “Let him but tell me that—and, by the Nine Hells, not long will you have me for companion, Klaneth.”
Kenton saw the drummer make a covert warning gesture to Zuhran; saw the black priest’s eyes narrow.
“Ho! Ho!” laughed Gigi. “Zubran jests. Would he not find life there as tiresome as he pretends to find it with us? Is it not so, Zubran?”
Again he made the fleet, warning sigh. And the Persian heeded it.
“Yes, I suppose that is so,” he answered grudgingly. “At any rate—am I not sworn to Nergal? Nevertheless,” he muttered, “the gods gave women one art that has not grown tiresome since first they made the world.”
“They lose that art in Nergal’s abode,” said the black priest, grimly. “Best remember that and curb that tongue of yours lest you find yourself in a worse place than here—where at least you have your body.”
“May I speak, master?” asked Zachel; and Kenton felt threat in the glance the overseer shot at him.
The black priest nodded.
“I think he passed the barrier because he knows naught of our Lord,” said Zachel. “Indeed—may be an enemy of our Lord. If not—why was he able to shake off the hands of your priests, vanish in the sea—and return?”
“Enemy of Nergal!” Klaneth muttered.
“But it does not follow that he is friend of Ishtar,” put in the drummer, smoothly. “True if he were sworn to the Dark One he could not pass the barrier. But true is it also that were he sworn to Ishtar equally would that have been impossible.”
“True!” Klaneth’s face cleared. “And I know that sword—Nabu’s own blade.”
He was silent for a moment; thoughtful. When he spoke there was courtesy in the thick voice.
“Stranger,” he said, “if we have used you roughly, forgive us. Visitors are rare upon this craft. You—let me say—startled us out of our manners. Zachel, loose his bonds.”
The overseer bent and sullenly set Kenton free of his thongs.
“If, as I think, you come from Nabu,” went on the black priest, “I tell you that I have no quarrel with the Wise One or his people. Nor is my Master, the Lord of Death, ever at odds with the Lord of Wisdom. How could he be when one carries the keys of knowledge of this life, and the other the key that unlocks the door of the ultimate knowledge? Nay, there is no quarrel there. Are you a favored one of Nabu? Did he set you on the ship? And—why?”
Silent was Kenton, searching desperately for some way to answer the black priest. Temporize with him as he had with Sharane, he knew he could not. Nor, he knew, was it of any use to tell him the truth as he had told her—and been driven out like a hunted rat for it. Here was danger; peril, greater than he had faced in the rosy cabin. Klaneth’s voice cut in:
“But favored of Nabu as you may be, it seems that could not save you from losing his sword, nor from the javelins of Ishtar’s women. And if that is so—can it save you from my whip, my chains?”
And as Kenton stood, still silent, wolf light flared in the dead pupils and the black priest leaped to his feet crying:
&n
bsp; “Answer me!”
“Answer Klaneth!” roared Gigi. “Has fear of him killed your tongue?”
Under the apparent anger of the drummer’s voice Kenton sensed a warning; friendliness.
“If that favor could have saved me, at least it did not,” he said sullenly.
The black priest dropped back upon the settle, chuckling.
“Nor could it save you if I decreed your death,” he said.
“Death—if he decrees it,” croaked Gigi. “Whoever you are,” went on the black priest, “whence you come, or how—one thing seems true. You have power to break a chain that irks me. Nay, Zachel, stay,” he spoke to the overseer who had made a move to go. “Your counsel is also good. Stay!”
“There is a slave dead at the oars,” said the overseer. “I would loose his chains and cast him over.”
“Dead,” there was new interest in Klaneth’s voice. “Which was he? How did he die?”
“Who knows?” Zachel shrugged his shoulders. “Of weariness, maybe. He was one of those who first set sail with us. He who sat beside the yellow-haired slave from the North whom we bought at Emakhtila.”
“Well—he had served long,” said the black priest. “Nergal has him. Let his body bear his chains a little longer. Stay with me.”
He spoke again to Kenton, deliberately, finally:
“I offer you freedom. I will give you honors and wealth in Emakhtila, where we shall sail as soon as you have done my bidding. There you shall have priesthood and a temple if you want them. Gold and women and rank—if you will do what I desire.”
“What must I do to win me all this?” asked Kenton. The black priest arose and bent his head so that his eyes looked straight into Kenton’s own. “Slay Sharane!” he said.
“Little meat in that, Klaneth,” the Persian spoke, mockingly. “Did you not see her girls beat him? As well send to conquer a lioness a man who has already been whipped by her cubs.”
“Nay,” said Klaneth, “I did not mean for him to pass over the open deck where surely her watchers would see him. He can clamber round the ship’s hull—from chain, ledge to ledge. There is a window behind the cabin wherein she sleeps. He can creep up and through it.”
“Best swear him to Nergal before he takes that road, master,” Zachel interrupted. “Else we may never have him back again.”
“Fool!” Gigi spoke. “If he makes his vows to Nergal perhaps he cannot go at all. How do we know that then the barrier will not be closed to him as it is to us who are sworn to the Dark One, even as it is to those who are sworn to Ishtar?”
“True,” nodded the black priest. “We dare not risk that. Well spoken, Gigi.”
“Why should Sharane be slain?” asked Kenton. “Let me take her for slave that I may repay her for her mockery and her blows. Give her to me—and you may keep all the riches and honors you have offered.”
“No!” The black priest leaned closer, searching more intently his eyes. “She must be slain. While she lives the Goddess has a vial into which to pour herself. Sharane dead—Ishtar has none on this ship through whom she may make herself manifest. This, I, Klaneth, know. Sharane dead, Nergal rules—through me! Nergal wins—through me!”
In Kenton’s mind a plan had formed. He would promise to do this—to slay Sharane. He would creep into her cabin, tell her of the black priest’s plot. Some way, somehow, make her believe him.
Too late he saw by the black priest’s face that Klaneth had caught his thought! Too late remembered that the sharp eyes of the overseer had been watching him, losing no fleeting change of expression; interpreting.
“Look, master!” Zachel snarled. “Look! Can you not read his thought, even as I? He cannot be trusted. You have held me here for counsel and have called my counsel good—then let me speak what is in my mind. I thought that this man had vanished from beside the mast, even as I told you. But did he? The gods come and go upon the ship as they will. But no man does. We thought we saw him struggling in the waves far behind the ship. But did we? By sorcery he may have lain all this while, hid in Sharane’s cabin. Out of her cabin we saw him come—”
“But driven forth by her women, Zachel,” broke in the drummer. “Cast out. Beaten. Remember that. There was no friendship there, Klaneth. They were at his throat like hounds tearing down a deer.”
“A play!” cried Zachel. “A play to trick you, master. They could have killed him. Why did they not? His wounds are but pin pricks. They drove him, yes, but where? Over to us! Sharane knew he could cross the barrier. Would she have made gift to us of new strength unless—she had a purpose? And what could that purpose have been, master? Only one. To place him here to slay you—even as you now plan to send him to slay her!
“He is a strong man—and lets himself be beaten by girls! He had a sword, a sharp blade and a holy one—and he lets a woman take it. Ho! Ho!” laughed Zachel. “Do you believe all this, master? Well—I do not!”
“By Nergal!” Klaneth swore, livid. “Now by Nergal—!”
He gripped Kenton by the shoulders, hurled him through the cabin door and out upon the deck. Swiftly he followed him.
“Sharane!” he howled. “Sharane!”
Kenton raised his head, dizzily; saw her standing beside the cabin door, arms around the slim waists of two of her damsels.
“Nergal and Ishtar are busy elsewhere,” mocked the black priest. “Life on the ship grows dull. There is a slave under my feet. A lying slave. Do you know him, Sharane?”
He bent and lifted Kenton high, as a man a child. Her face, cold, contemptuous, did not change.
“He is nothing to me—Worm,” she answered.
“Nothing to you, eh?” roared Klaneth. “Yet it was by your will that he came to me. Well—he has a lying tongue, Sharane. By the old law of the slaves shall he be punished for it. I will pit four of my men against him. If he master them I shall keep him for awhile—to amuse us further. But if they master him—then shall his lying tongue be torn from him. And I will give it to you as a token of my love—O, Sacred Vessel of Ishtar!”
“Ho! Ho!” laughed the black priest as Sharane shrank, paling. “A test for your sorceries, Sharane. To make that tongue speak! Make it—” the thick voice purred—“make it whisper of love to you. Tell you how beautiful you are, Sharane. How wonderful—ah, sweet Sharane! Reproach you a little, too, perhaps for sending it to me to be torn out!”
“Ho! Ho!” laughed Klaneth; then as though he spat the words, “You temple slut!”
He thrust a light whip in Kenton’s hands. “Now fight, slave!” he snarled, “fight for your lying tongue!”
Four of the priests leaped forward, drawing from beneath their robes thongs tipped with metal. They circled, and before Kenton could gather his strength they were upon him. They darted about him like four lank wolves; slashing at him with their whips. Blows flailed upon his head, his naked shoulders. Awkwardly he tried to parry to return them. The metal tips bit deep. From shoulders, chest, back, a slow rain of blood began to drip.
A thong caught him across the face, half blinding him.
Far away, he heard the golden voice of Sharane, shrill with scorn.
“Slave—can you not even fight?”
Cursing, he dropped his useless whip. Close before him was the grinning face of the priest who had struck him. Ere his lash could be raised again the fist of Kenton had smashed squarely on the leering mouth. He felt beneath his knuckles the bones of the nose crumble, the teeth shatter. The priest crashed back; went rolling to the rail.
Instantly the other three were upon him; tearing at his throat, clawing him, striving to drag him down. He broke loose. The three held back for an instant; then rushed. One there was a little in front of the others. Kenton caught him by an arm, twisted that arm over his shoulder, set hip to prisoned flank, heaved and hurled the priest through air against the pair poised to strike. Out flung the body; fell short. The head crashed against the deck. There was a sharp snap, like a breaking faggot. For a moment the body stood, shoulders
touching deck, legs writhing as though in grotesque mid-somersault. Then crumpled and lay still.
“Well thrown!” he heard the Persian shout.
Long fingers clutched his ankles; his feet flew from beneath him. As he fell he caught glimpse of a face staring up at him, a face that was but one red smear; the face of the first priest he had battered down. Falling, Kenton swept out his arms. Claws clutched his throat. There flashed into Kenton’s mind a dreadful thing he had seen done in another unequal combat upon a battlefield in France. Up swept his right hand, the first two fingers extended. They found place in the eye sockets of the throttler; pressed there cruelly; pressed there relentlessly. He heard a howl of agony; tears of blood spurted over his hands; the choking fingers dropped from his throat. Where eyes had been were now two raw red sockets with dreadful pendants.
Kenton leaped to his feet. He stamped upon the crimson smeared face looking up at him stamped once, twice, thrice—and the grip about his ankles was gone.
He caught a glimpse of Sharane, white-faced, wide-eyed; realized that the laughter of the black priest was stilled.
At him rushed the fourth acolyte, a broad-leafed knife gleaming in his grip. Kenton bent his head, rushed to meet him. He caught the hand that held the blade; bent the arm back; heard the bone snap. The fourth priest shrieked and fell.
He saw Klaneth, mouth loose, staring at him.
Straight for the black priest’s throat he leaped, right fist swinging upward to the jaw as he sprang. But the black priest thrust out his arms, caught him in mid-leap; lifted him high, over his head; balanced him to dash him down upon the deck.
Kenton closed his eyes—this, then, was the end.
He heard the voice of the Persian, urgent:
“Hai, Klaneth! Hai! Kill him not! By Ishak of the Hollow Hell—kill him not. Klaneth! Save him to fight again!”
The A. Merritt Megapack Page 65