The A. Merritt Megapack

by Abraham Merritt

  They could hear the drop of oars; voices; the low tapping of a hammer, beating the stroke for the rowers. The maids of Sharane silently ranged themselves along the port rail near the bow, bows standing, arrows at strings, beside them their stabbing javelins, their swords, too; their shields at feet.

  The four men crouched, peeping out through the trees. What was coming? Questing ship of Klaneth that had nosed them out? Hunters searching the sea for them spurred on by the black priest’s promises of reward?

  Through the narrow entrance to the hidden harbor drifted a galley. Twice the length of the ship of Ishtar, it was single tiered, fifteen oars to the side and double banked—two men to each sweep. There were a dozen or more men standing on the bow deck; how many others not visible there was no knowing. The galley crept in. It nosed along the shore. When less than two hundred feet away from the hidden watchers grapnels were thrown over the side and the boat made fast.

  “Good water here, and all we need,” they heard one say.

  Gigi put his arms around the three, drew them close to him.

  “Wolf,” he whispered, “now do I believe in your omen. For lo! close upon its heels follows another and better one. A summons indeed. There are the slaves we must have for our vacant oars! And gold too, I’ll warrant, that we shall want when we reach Emakhtila.”

  “Slaves and gold, yes,” muttered Kenton; then sardonically as half a dozen more men came up from below and joined the group on the bow—“only remains to find the way to take them, Gigi.”

  “Nay, but that will be easy,” whispered Zubran. “They suspect nothing, and men surprised are already half beaten. We four will creep along the bank until we are just opposite their bow. When we have been away for as long as Zala there—” he motioned to one of the warrior maids—“can count two hundred, the maids shall pour their arrows into that group, shooting fast as they can but taking careful aim and bringing down as many as they can. Then we will leap aboard and upon those left. But when the maids hear us shout they must shoot no longer at the bow, lest we be struck. Thereafter let them keep any others from joining those forward. Is it a good plan? I’ll warrant we shall have their ship in less time than it has taken me to tell it.”

  A qualm shook Kenton.

  “Now by the gods!” came the voice, evidently of the captain of the galley. “Would that cursed Ship of Ishtar had been here. Had it been—well, I think none of us would need go faring out of Emakhtila again. Gods! If we might only have crept upon her here and won Klaneth’s reward!”

  Kenton’s compunction fled; here were the hunters, and delivered into the hands of the hunted.

  “Right, Zubran,” he whispered fiercely. “Beckon Zala to us and tell her the plan.”

  And when that had been done he led them over to the side of the ship into the covert. There was a ledge that helped them in their going and it seemed to Kenton, watching hungrily the craft which, won, might mean Sharane, that the maids’ arrows would never fly.

  At last they came, buzzing like bees and swarming among the cluster of men on the strange ship. And the maids were aiming straight. Of the near score fully half were down, spitted, before they broke for shelter, crying crazily. Kenton shouted and leaped upon the deck, cutting with his sword, while the mace of Gigi struck, and the blade of Sigurd, the scimitar of Zubran look toll. Beaten ere they could raise a hand, those left alive knelt and cried for mercy. A little band running to their aid from the stern met an arrow storm from the maids, threw down their arms, raised hands of submission.

  They herded their captives together, disarmed them and thrust them into the forward cabin. They locked them in, first making sure there were no weapons there and no way for them to escape. They took the keys to the rowers’ chains. The Viking went down into the pit, picked out nineteen of the sturdiest slaves, loosed and drove them two by two over to the ship. He manacled them to its empty oars.

  Much gold they found, too, and other things that might prove useful in Emakhtila—clothes of seamen in the fashion of the place, long robes to cover them and make them less open to detection.

  Arose then the question of what was so be done with their prize—and the men aboard her. Gigi was for putting them all to the sword. The Persian thought that it would be best to bring back the slaves, leave their ship where she was, and after killing all those on the captive galley, put forth to Emakhtila on her. There was much in his plan to be commended. The Ship of Ishtar was a marked vessel. There was no mistaking her. This other craft would arouse no suspicion in the minds of those who saw it sailing. And once landed at Emakhtila, and what lay before them done, they could sail back on it and recover their own.

  But Kenton would not have it. And the upshot was that the captain was called out for questioning and told that if he answered truthfully his life and those of the others would be spared.

  There was little he could tell them—but that little was enough to quicken Kenton’s heart—bring new dread to it also. Yes, there had been a woman brought to Emakhtila by Klaneth, the Priest of Nergal. He had won her in a fight, Klaneth had said, a sea battle in which many men had been slain. He had not said where, or with whom this battle had taken place, and his soldiers had been warned to be silent. But it began to be whispered that the woman was the woman of the Ship of Ishtar. The priestesses of Ishtar had claimed her. But Klaneth who had great power had resisted them, and as a compromise the Council of Priests had made her priestess of the God Bel and placed her in Bel’s Bower on top of the Temple of the Seven Zones.

  “I know that Temple and the Bower of Bel,” Sigurd had nodded. “And why its priestess must live there,” he had whispered, looking askance at Kenton.

  This woman appeared now and then, heavily veiled, attending certain ceremonies to the God Bel, the captain went on. But she seemed to be a woman in a dream. Her memory had been taken from her—or so it was reported. Beyond that he knew nothing—except that Klaneth had doubled his reward for three of them—he pointed to Gigi, Zubran and the Persian; and had trebled it for him—he pointed to Kenton.

  When they were done with him they unloosed the remaining slaves and sent them ashore. They hailed the ship and the Nubian brought her over. They watched the captain and his men pass over the side of the galley and disappear among the trees.

  “Plenty of water and food,” grumbled Gigi. “They fare far better at our hands than we would have fared at theirs.”

  They hitched the captured galley to the ship; slowly pulled it out of the harbor through the rock-lipped mouth. And after they had gone a mile or so Sigurd dropped into it, did a few things with an axe, and climbing back cut it loose. Rapidly the galley filled and sank.

  “Now,” cried Kenton, and took the rudder bar, steering the ship straight to where the long blue arrow pointed.

  Pointed to Emakhtila and to Sharane—

  Sharane!

  CHAPTER 17

  They Seek Sorcerers’ Isle

  Luck clung to them. The silver mists hung close about the ship, shrouding her so that she sailed within a circle not more than double her length. Ever the mists hid her. Kenton, sleeping little, drove the slaves at the oar to point of exhaustion.

  “There is a great storm brewing,” warned Sigurd.

  “Pray Odin that it may hold back till we are well within Emakhtila,” answered Kenton.

  “If we but had a horse I would sacrifice it to the All-Father,” said Sigurd. “Then he would hold that storm till our needs called it.”

  “Speak low, lest the sea horses trample us!” warned Kenton.

  He had questioned the Viking about that interruption of his when the captain of the captured galley had said that the captured woman was Priestess of Bel’s Bower.

  “She will be safe there, even from Klaneth—so long as she takes no other lover than the god,” Sigurd had said.

  “No other lover than the god!” Kenton had roared, hand dropping to sword and glaring at Sigurd. “She shall have no lover but me—god or man, Sigurd! What do you mean?” />
  “Take hand from sword, Wolf,” Sigurd had replied. “I meant not to offend you. Only—gods are gods! And there was something in that captain’s talk about your woman walking in dream, memory withdrawn from her—was there not? If that be so—blood-brother—you are in those memories she has lost!”

  Kenton winced.

  “Nergal once tried to part a man and a woman who loved,” he said, “even as Sharane and I. He could not. I do not think Nergal’s priest can succeed where his master failed.”

  “Not well reasoned, Wolf.” It was Zubran who had come quietly upon them. “The gods are strong. Therefore they have no reason for subtlety or cunning. They smite—and all is done. It is not artistic, I admit—but it is unanswerable. And man, who has not the strength of the gods, must resort to cunning and subtlety. That is why man will do worse things than the gods. Out of his weakness he is forced to it. The gods should not be blamed—except for making man weaker than they. And therefore Klaneth is more to be feared by you than Nergal, his master.”

  “He cannot drive me out of Sharane’s heart!” Kenton cried.

  The Viking bent his head down to the compass.

  “You may be right,” he muttered. “Zubran may be right. All I know is that while your woman is faithful to Bel, no man may harm her!”

  Vague as he might be on that one point, the Viking was direct and full of meat upon others. The Norseman had been observant while slave to the priests of Nergal. He knew the city and the Temple of the Seven Zones intimately. Best of all he knew a way of entering Emakhtila by another road than that of its harbor.

  This was indeed all important, since it was not within the bounds of possibility that they could enter that harbor without instant recognition.

  “Look, comrades,” Sigurd scratched with point of sword a rude map on the planks of the deck. “Here lies the city. It is at the end of a fjord. The mountains rise on each side of it and stretch in two long spits far out to sea. But here”—he pointed to a spot in the coast line close to the crotch where the left hand mountain barrier shot out from the coast—“is a bay with a narrow entrance from the sea. It is used by the priests of Nergal for a certain secret sacrifice. Between it and the city a hidden way runs through the hills. That path brings you out to the great temple. I have traveled the hidden way and have stood on the shores of that bay. I went there with other slaves, bearing priests in litters and things for the sacrifice. While it would take two good sleeps for a ship to make the journey from Emakhtila to this place, it is by the hidden way only half so far as a strong man could walk in my own land between the dawn and noon of a winter day. Also there are many places there where the ship can be hidden. Few galleys pass by and no one lives near—which is why the priests of Nergal picked it.

  “Also I know well the Temple of the Seven Zones—since long it was my home,” went on Sigurd. “Its height is thirty times the ship’s mast.”

  Kenton swiftly estimated. That would make the temple six hundred feet—a respectable height indeed.

  “Its core,” said the Viking, “is made up of the sanctuaries of the gods and the goddess Ishtar, one upon each other. Around this core are the quarters of the priests and priestesses and lesser shrines. These secret sanctuaries are seven, the last being the house of Bel. From Bel’s House a stairway leads up into his Bower. At the base of the temple is a vast court with altars and other shrines where the people come to worship. Its entrances are strongly guarded. Even we four could not enter—there!

  “But around the temple, which is shaped thus”—he scratched the outline of a truncated cone—“a great stone stairway runs thus”—he drew a spiral from base to top of cone. “At intervals, along that stairway, are sentinels. There is a garrison where it begins. Is this all clear?”

  “What is clear,” grunted Gigi, “is that we would need an army to take it!”

  “Not so,” the Viking answered. “Remember how we took the galley—although they outnumbered us? We will row the ship into that secret harbor. If priests are there we must do what we can—slay or flee. But if the Norns decree that no priests be there, we will hide the ship and leave the slaves in care of the black-skin. Then the four of us, dressed as seamen in the clothes and the long cloaks we took from the galley, will take the hidden way and go into the city.

  “For as to that stairway—I have another plan. It is high walled—up to a man’s chest. If we can pass without arousing the guards at its base, we can creep up under shadow of that wall, slaying the sentinels as we go, until we reach the Bower of Bel and entering, bear Sharane away.

  “But not in fair weather could we do this,” he ended. “There must be darkness or storm that they see us not from the streets. And that is why I pray to Odin, that this brewing tempest may not boil until we have reached the city and looked upon that stairway. For in that storm that is surely coming we could do as I have said and swiftly.”

  “But in all this I see no chance of slaying Klaneth,” growled Zubran. “We creep in, we creep up, we creep out again with Sharane—if we can. And that is all. By Ormuzd, my knees are too tender for creeping! Also my scimitar itches to scratch itself on the black priest’s hide.”

  “No safety while Klaneth lives!” croaked Gigi, playing upon his old tune.

  “I have no thought of Klaneth now,” rumbled the Viking. “First comes Kenton’s woman. After that—we take up the black priest.”

  “I am ashamed,” said Zubran. “I should have remembered. Yet in truth, I would feel easier if we could kill Klaneth on our way to her. For I agree with Gigi—while he lives, no safety for your blood-brother or any of us, However—Sharane first, of course.”

  The Viking had been peering down into the compass. He looked again, intently, and drew back, pointing to it.

  Both the blue serpents in the scarlet bath were parallel, their heads turned to one point.

  “We head straight to Emakhtila,” said Sigurd. “But are we within the jaws of that fjord or out of them? Wherever we are we must be close.”

  He swung the rudder to port. The ship veered. The large needle slipped a quarter of the space to the right between the red symbols on the bowl edge. The smaller held steady.

  “That proves nothing,” grunted the Viking, “except that we are no longer driving straight to the city. But we may be close upon the mounts. Check the oarsmen.”

  Slower went the ship, and slower, feeling her way through the mists. And suddenly they darkened before them. Something grew out of them slowly, slowly. It lay revealed as a low shore, rising sharply and melting into deeper shadows behind. The waves ran gently to it, caressing its rocks. Sigurd swore a great oath of thankfulness.

  “We are on the other side of the mounts,” he said. “Somewhere close is that secret bay of which I told you. Bid the overseer drive the ship along as we are.”

  He swung the rudder sharply to starboard. The ship turned; slowly followed the shore. Soon in front of them loomed a high ridge of rock. This they skirted, circled its end and still sculling silently came at last to another narrow strait into which the Viking steered.

  “A place for hiding,” he said. “Send the ship into that cluster of trees ahead. Nay—there is water there, the trees rise out of it. Once within them the ship can be seen neither from shore nor sea.”

  They drifted into the grove. Long, densely leaved branches covered them.

  “Now lash her to the tree trunks,” whispered Sigurd. “Go softly. Priests may be about. We will look for them later, when we are on our way. We leave the ship in charge of the women. The black-skin stays behind. Let them all lie close till we return—”

  “There would be better chance for you to return if you cut off that long hair of yours and your beard, Sigurd,” said the Persian, and added: “Better chance for us, also.”

  “What!” cried the Viking, outraged. “Cut my hair! Why, even when I was slave they left that untouched!”

  “Wise counsel!” said Kenton. “And Zubran—that naming beard of yours and your red hair
. Better for you and us, too, if you shaved them both—or changed their color.”

  “By Ormuzd, no!” exclaimed the Persian, as outraged as Sigurd.

  “The fowler sets the net and is caught with the bird!” laughed the Viking. “Nevertheless, it is good counsel. Better hair off face and head than head off shoulders!”

  The maids brought shears. Laughing, they snipped Sigurd’s mane to nape of neck, trimmed the long beard into short spade shape. Amazing was the transformation of Sigurd, Trygg’s son, brought about by that shearing.

  “There is one that Klaneth will not know if he sees him,” grunted Gigi.

  Now the Persian put himself in the women’s hands.

  They dabbled at beard and head with cloths dipped in a bowl of some black liquid. The red faded, then darkened into brown. Not so great was the difference between him and the old Zubran as there was between the new and old Sigurd. But Kenton and Gigi nodded approvingly—at least the red that made him as conspicuous as the Norseman’s long hair was gone.

  Remained Kenton and Gigi. Little could be done for either of them. There was no changing Gigi’s frog slit of a mouth, the twinkling beady eyes, the bald pate, the immense shoulders.

  “Take out your earrings, Gigi,” bade Kenton.

  “Take off that bracelet on your arm,” replied Gigi,

  “Sharane’s gift! Never!” exclaimed Kenton, as outraged as had been both the Norseman and the Persian.

  “My earrings were put there by one who loved me as much as she does you.” For the first time since Kenton had known Gigi there was anger in his voice.

  The Persian laughed softly. It broke the tension. Kenton grinned at the drummer, somewhat guiltily. Gigi grinned back.

  “Well,” he said. “It seems that we must all make our sacrifices—” he began to unscrew the earrings.

  “No, Gigi!” Kenton could not bring himself to break that golden band upon which Sharane had graven the symbols of her love. “Leave them be. Rings and bracelet—both can be hidden.”