by Anthology
The woman nodded eagerly when Miela told her what to do, and fell on her knees before us.
"She says she will serve us always. She has been very badly treated, Alan."
We sent the woman away, and with a last hasty glance around hurriedly left the house alone with its single dead occupant. A large wooden mortar and pestle, used for pounding rice, stood in the kitchen. I carried the pestle away with me; it was nearly five feet long and quite heavy--an excellent weapon.
We hastened up through the city--Miela half walking, half flying, and I carrying this bludgeon and running with twelve-foot strides. But it was now hardly more than three-quarters of an hour since we had passed this way before, and there were still few people about to see us. Baar and his men had started some twenty minutes before us, I figured, and we must reach the castle before them.
I made extraordinary progress over the level country. But I could not run uphill for long, and soon had to slow down to a walk. Miela kept closer to me now. We approached the castle grounds.
"Where will the guards be, Miela? We must avoid them if we can. They might try to stop us."
Miela did not know where they would be; but under the circumstances, as Baar had told his men, she believed the guards would disappear from the vicinity. This conjecture proved to be correct. The guards, not wishing to be concerned in the affair at all, had simply disappeared. We saw nothing of Baar and his men on the way up the mountain, although I had hoped we might overtake them.
As we passed hurriedly through the palm gardens surrounding the castle I saw its huge front doors were closed.
"Miela, we can't get in that way. A side entrance--or some other way--"
"I know," she said. "There is a smaller door below, and others on the side."
We hastened on. Suddenly I gripped Miela by the arm.
"What's that--over there--see, beyond the grove?"
There seemed to be furtive figures lurking among the palms.
"Those cannot be Baar's men, Miela--there are too many. What can it--"
We had reached a little doorway under the front terrace. There was no time to investigate these advancing figures. Baar and his men might already be inside the castle.
I slid through the doorway, every muscle tense. Miela had brought the knife from Baar's shack, and with it clenched in her hand was close beside me. I wanted to make her stay outside, where she could fly away if danger threatened, but she pleaded to follow me, and I let her come. I needed her, since I had no idea of the interior arrangements of the building.
We passed along a dim hallway and up a narrow flight of stone steps. Not a sound came to us; the interior of the castle was silent as a tomb. At the top of the steps we came almost directly into the inner patio of the building. Across a bed of tall flowers, nodding gently in a little morning breeze that swept down from above, I saw the head and shoulders of a man standing in the center of the courtyard; the lower part of his body was hidden by the flowers. I tried to duck out of sight, but he had seen me.
He was not over forty feet away. I stepped back, believing I could reach him in a single leap; but Miela held me.
"Not you, Alan. He would cry out. The noise would bring others." She raised her knife, and her eyes blazed into mine. "Never have I thought to kill a human. But now I--a woman--must kill. Stand quiet, Alan."
She flew swiftly up and poised over the man. He had started toward us. Evidently he was, so far, as anxious for silence as we, for he made no sound. I saw now he was one of those who had come to Baar's shack. His naked shoulders, his thick neck, and bullet head were all that showed above the flower stems as he plowed his way through them directly toward me; but the hand he swung aloft to aid his progress held a knife.
He glanced up at Miela, poised in the air above him, and saw the weapon in her hand. At this new enemy he stopped, confused.
Miela swooped down at him, and he struck at her with his knife; but she avoided it with an incredibly swift turn, and a second later had passed him and was crossing the courtyard.
Round and round she flew, her great wings flapping audibly, a giant bird circling its prey. The man turned continually to face her. Several times she swooped toward him, and as swiftly avoided his blow. From every side she threatened. The man stood now bewildered, striking wild in a frenzy, as one strikes at a darting wasp. At last, with an agonized cry, he turned and ran. Instantly she dropped upon him; there was a flash of her white arm; the man's body crumpled and lay still among the flowers.
Miela was back beside me. Her breast was heaving; her eyes were full of tears; she trembled.
"A terrible thing, Alan, my husband, for a woman to do; but it had to be."
I pressed her hand with silent understanding.
"Come, Alan," she said. "They will have heard his cry. The others--we must meet them, too."
"We must get to the king. I--"
A vibrant scream rang out from the silence of the house--a man's voice, shrill with agony--then suddenly stilled.
"Good God, Miela! The king--where is he? Take me there."
She pulled me back through the doorway. A man scurried past. I leaped at him and struck him a glancing blow with the heavy wooden pestle. He stumbled to his knees. Without thought of giving quarter, I hit him again before he could rise. He sank back, senseless or dead.
Miela was ahead of me, and I ran after her along a hallway. The sound of scurrying footsteps sounded from overhead; a woman screamed.
A broad, curving stairway fronted us. I passed Miela halfway up, and, reaching the top, ran full into another man who darted from a doorway close by. The impact of my heavier body flung him backward to the floor. I leaped over him with a shout of warning to Miela, and ran on into the room.
A man was standing stock still in its center. It was Baar. He flung his knife at me as I appeared, but it went wild. Two other men were coming toward me from opposite sides of the room. I swung the bludgeon about me viciously, keeping them away. Suddenly Baar shouted a command, and before I could reach any one of them they had scurried away like rats.
A low bed with a huge canopy of silk stood against the wall. A woman knelt on the floor beside it, and against her knees huddled a little half-grown boy.
I heard Miela's voice shouting in her own language. The sound of men running came from below. Then Miela's half-hysterical laughter, and then the words: "They are running away, Alan--all of them. I have been calling you to bring me the light-ray. And they are running away."
I turned to the bed, pushing its curtains aside, and then hurriedly closing them again with a shudder.
Miela was beside me.
"The king is dead, Miela. No--you must not look."
Her eyes widened; her hand went to her breast.
"There is one who needs you." I pointed to the woman on the floor.
She was staring at us, unseeing, one arm flung about the child protectingly, holding him partially under one of her long, sleek red wings. The fingers of her other hand clutched convulsively at the bed coverings; she was moaning softly with a grief and terror all the more intense because it was restrained.
"There is one who needs you, Miela," I repeated. "Comfort her--for we have come too late."
The castle now was in thorough confusion. Several waiting maids rushed into the room, stared at their mistress and the little prince, and, seeing what had happened, stood silently wringing their hands in fright, or fled aimlessly through the halls. One of the king's councilors had come in, stopping, bewildered, at the scene that met him.
"Tell him what has occurred, Miela," I said.
There came now faintly to my ears from outside the castle sounds of a gathering crowd--murmurs and vague muffled shouts. The cries grew louder. A rain of missiles struck the castle; a stone came through a near-by window, falling almost at my feet. All at once I remembered the lurking figures we had seen among the palms in the garden.
"Miela!" I cried. "Hear that, outside! A crowd is gathering. The men we saw--out there! People whom
Baar has--Miela, ask him, for God's sake, to tell us how we can get weapons. Where are the other councilors? Send for them. We must do something--now, at once. This is revolution, Miela--don't you understand? Revolution!"
I felt so impotent. Here in this crisis I could talk to no one but Miela--could issue no direct commands--could understand the words of no one but her.
Suddenly, from over our heads, a great, solemn deep-throated bell began tolling.
"What is that? What does that mean?"
A girl rushed into the room.
"It is the bell of danger," said Miela quickly. "The girls are ringing it to arouse the city. Up here then will the people hurry to find out what it is that threatens."
"They're outside now," I retorted. "Order all the king's councilors here at once. Find out if any guards are about the place. Send them here. Where is the head of the city's police? Send him here to me! Tell him to call out all his men."
What was I saying? I had forgotten the one vital thing!
"Miela! The light-ray! These men of science who guard it, where are they? Send for their leader. Get him here to me at once--we must have the ray!"
Miela stood very quietly beside me. Her face was white; her eyes blazed, but she seemed calm and unfrightened.
"He will come," she said, "and armed with the ray. The bell will bring him. Your other commands I will see are obeyed."
The old councilor, who had been standing by, dazed, came slowly forward at Miela's call. The king's councilor! And all the others were like him. The king was dead, and here was the little prince huddled in his mother's arm! Realization had been slow in coming, but now it broke upon me like a great light.
I flung the bludgeon away from me, and stood erect.
"Miela," I cried, "tell him--tell them all--their king is dead. It is I who command now. There is no one else--and I have the power. Tell them that. It is I, the man from earth, who commands!"
CHAPTER XIX.
THE NEW RULER.
The solemn bell continued pealing out its knell; the shouts and tumult outside were growing louder. Miela spoke hurriedly to the old man, then turned to leave the room.
"Your commands shall be obeyed, my husband," she said quietly.
I felt again that sudden sense of helplessness as I saw her leave.
"Be careful, Miela. Order every one in the castle to the roof. Here! Tell the queen before you go. Send every one up there with me. The mob may come in. We'll make our stand up there."
I understood Baar's plot better now. He had gathered his mob of peons to surround the castle and make a demonstration in his favor. Then, with the king dead and the queen and her little son held by him and his men--their lives as forfeits--he hoped to be able to treat with the men of science who controlled the light-ray, and who, I did not doubt, represented the better element among the people.
It seemed a mad plan at best; and now that it had gone wrong, I wondered what Baar would attempt to do. Evidently he and his henchmen had all left the castle, fearing the light-ray, which Miela pretended I held. They were outside now, among the mob, I assumed. Would the mob attempt to enter?
Miela hurried away to send every one inside the building to its roof. The queen, following Miela's commands unquestioningly, took the little prince by the hand and, signing to me to follow, led me upstairs.
There was only one stairway leading to the roof, I found with satisfaction, and it was narrow--an excellent place for defense. The roof was broad and flat, flanked at the ends by two towers which rose considerably above it.
It was a frightened little group who gathered about me--the queen and her son, two of the king's councilors, and perhaps half a dozen young girls whom I took to be the queen's attendants. Others came up each moment.
I sat the queen down on a little white stone bench in the center of the garden, and bowed before her respectfully. Then I smiled upon them all. I think they were reassured and trusted me, and I found my commands were obeyed without question.
The queen was a woman of perhaps thirty-five--tall and slender, with black hair and eyes. She was dressed in a single garment of heavy white silk, a dress that fell ungathered at the waist from above her breast under the arms to her ankles. It was, I judged, her sleeping robe. Her hair hung in two long braids over her shoulders; her feet were incased in sandals.
She was unquestionably a beautiful woman. I remember my vague surprise, as I saw her, with her son by her side, and her long sleek wings unmutilated. And then I saw that her wings were fastened together in two places by little metal chains. She, then, like other married women, was not permitted to fly, although the beauty of her wings was unspoiled.
I sent two of the old men to stand by the head of the stairs. Miela had given me her knife, and I handed it now to one of them, trying to make him understand that he was to bar the passage of any one who should not be allowed up. He shuddered, but he took the knife and stood where I indicated.
The crowd in the garden below had seen us on the roof now, and the tumult of shouts was doubled. I went to the parapet and looked over.
The garden was full of a struggling, confused mass of people. Those nearest the castle were mostly peons. I noticed men and a few women armed with various implements of agriculture, and any sort of rude weapon they could obtain. They were standing about in little groups or rushing excitedly to and fro in aimless, uncommanded activity.
Many of them held stones in their hands, which occasionally they cast at the building. It was one of those mobs that gather ready for trouble, is swayed in almost any direction by any chance leadership, and most frequently accomplishes nothing.
I felt a sudden sense of relief. The garden was rapidly filling up with men and women of the more intelligent classes, who mingled with the others, learned what had occurred--for I did not doubt but that the knowledge of the king's death had spread about--and then stood waiting to see what would happen.
The air was full of excited girls flying over the castle. A few alighted for a moment on the roof, but I did not fear them. Where was Baar? I could not hope to distinguish him among the crowd, but still I saw no sign of his leadership. Had he seen the failure of his plan and, fearing the results of his regicide, fled the vicinity? I hoped so fervently.
As I showed myself at the parapet a great shout arose. Some of the men--I knew at once it was those who had heard I possessed the light-ray--scattered in terror at my appearance. I determined then, if no issue were raised that would demand my using this supposed weapon, I could continue to command the situation.
I stood there a moment looking down. At the edge of the crowd I saw a few figures whom I took to be members of the city's police. They were standing idle, taking no part in what was going on. There seemed nothing I could do until Miela returned. If only I could speak to the crowd! I wondered if I dared descend among them and disperse the mob of peons. I went to the head of the stairway. Three or four of the king's councilors were standing there.
There was no one on the stairs; evidently every one living in the castle was now on its roof--some thirty of them altogether. The crowd outside quite evidently had no present intention of entering the building. The mob of peons Baar had gathered were greatly in the minority now, and I felt that matters were steadily improving. I wondered where Miela was, and then while I was standing there I saw her coming up the stairs, a man following close behind her.
I think I have never been so glad to see any one as I was to see her at this moment. Her face was grave; her demeanor calm, as before.
"He is here," she said as she came to the head of the stairs. "This is Fuero, Alan, leader of the men of science, who have the ray."
As he came out onto the roof I saw this man was easily the most dominant personality I had so far encountered on Mercury. He was tall for his race, although several inches shorter than I, a man of sixty, perhaps, with iron-gray hair falling long about his ears.
He wore sandals and a pair of the usual knee-length, wide-cut trousers. But what distingui
shed him in his dress was a broad panel of heavy silk, hanging from neck to knee, both in back and front, with an opening at the top through which his head was thrust. This silken panel was some eighteen inches wide, light gray in color, and richly embroidered in gold in various designs. It hung free, except for a slight fastening at the waist line. Beneath it the man's naked torso--and his bare arms--showed powerfully muscled.
His face was smooth shaven, with strong, regular features. I noticed, too, there was a slight cleft in his square chin. His forehead was high, his blue eyes kindly, yet with a searching, piercing quality about them.
It was not so much the man's general appearance as his bearing that made me realize he was a forceful character. There was about him unmistakable poise. I knew at once he felt his power, his authority. That he would use it wisely I could not doubt.
He stood regarding me gravely--an appraising regard under which I felt myself flushing a little. Miela spoke to him swiftly, and he inclined his head to me by way of introduction, his glance meanwhile taking in the scene on the roof.
With Miela as interpreter we held a hurried conversation. I learned then that Fuero and his associates had many years before organized a society for the development of the light-ray in its various forms. They had soon realized in their experiments its diabolical power of destruction, and had taken oath then that they would not use it, or allow it to be used, except under the most critical circumstances of the nation's welfare.
Realizing, too, the power it gave them as individuals, they had sworn to remain men of science only, taking no part in public affairs, remaining rigidly aloof from all national affairs. Most of their work concerned the development of the light-ray for industrial purposes. In these forms it developed heat, but had very little power of projection.
All this Miela told me in a few brief sentences.
"How did Tao get the ray?" I demanded.
"Some members of the society proved false," she answered. "When Tao was banished to the Twilight Country they deserted their brothers and joined him. There were others with him of scientific mind, and these soon learned how to make it, too."