The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 04

by Anthology

  Naia and Maia followed, climbing a ladder with surprising ease. Last of all to leave the boat, before it returned to the beach, came Bathos, whom, being blue, the Zollarians had termed a slave, as were all of his race born of captive parents, in the nation to the north.

  I glanced about me, recognizing the craft as similar in the main details at least to those Jason had found in common use on the Tamarizian rivers and the Central Sea when he had reached Palos first. There was a high deck forward, a lower deck in the waist, where the oarsmen sat on benches, close to a series of ports in the skin of the vessel, through which were thrust the butts of the heavy oars. Aft again was a second higher deck, covered by an awning beneath which were placed padded divans and several quaintly shaped and ornamented chairs. Indeed, the vessel was nothing less than regal, as I perceived. Green was the awning and the sail on the gilded mast running up between the banks of rowers' benches.

  Gilded too were the railings of the twin stairs that led up to the after-deck on either side, from the lower level of the waist. And the sheathing of the decks seemed to be made of closely fitted strips of the wine-red wood, customarily used for the fashioning of couches and divans and chairs.

  Plainly, then, we had come aboard the craft of someone of more than ordinary station, I thought, and gave my attention to a man standing on guard beside a door in the facing of the space between the level of the after-deck and the waist.

  Huge he was and florid, muscled like an ox, his mighty thorax banded with metal, fitting him so closely that the bellies of the shoulder muscles bulged above their upper edge. Head, shoulders, and arms were naked, as were his legs save for a short cloth skirt below his armor, falling halfway down his thighs, and the metal casings on his heavy calves. He leaned on the haft of a spear and watched, straightening to attention only when the captain in charge of the raiding party advanced with his captives toward him. But only for a moment. Then as the captain paused, without speaking, he shifted his spear, put out a hand, and opened the door.

  It gave into a passage, with curtained doorways on either hand and a lighted apartment at the farther end, toward which Naia, her maid, and Bathos, with the Zollarians who led them, passed.

  They reached it, and then, in so far as sensation went at least, I gasped. The room was ablaze with lights that struck back on every hand from woodwork carved and tooled in most magnificent fashion, hung with woven fabrics of green shot through with threads of gold. But if the apartment was amazing in its appearance, its occupant was in no way overcast.

  Tawny she was as a lioness, of hair and eyes, as she lay there on that splendid couch, draped with the mottled hide of some tawny beast; lithe as a tigress she appeared in all her supple, wonderfully rounded length, save for a jeweled girdle supporting a drapery of almost transparent tissue. And as she lifted her fine torso, raising herself to a sitting position before the captain, who sank with uplifted hand to a knee before her, one sensed there were tiny bells on the jeweled bands about her tapering ankles that tinkled as she moved.

  Suspicion, swift as a lance-thrust, came upon me as I saw her, even before the captain spoke. "Hail to thee, Kalamita, Priestess of Adita, goddess of beauty; they servant returns from that mission on which it was thy pleasure to send him, bringing with him those thou named."

  Kalamita! Kalamita, the Zollarian, magnet of the flesh, by whose shameless charms and yet more shameless favors Kyphallos, Prince of Cathur, had been seduced.

  Kalamita smiled. "'Tis well, Ptoth. Arise. You have proven faithful, and you shall have your reward. Found you any obstacle worth naming on your mission?"

  "Nay, Sister of Bandhor," said Ptoth rising. "None but the house slaves lay there to oppose us—one we brought with us, since so it was ordered—the rest were slain."

  I glanced at Croft, and he nodded.

  "'Tis well," said Kalamita again. "Found you any trace of this Mouthpiece of Zitu?"

  "Nay," the captain answered, smiling, "but we left him ample trace of us."

  Kalamita's whole expression darkened. Her amber eyes flashed. "Aye—and may Adita forsake my beauty and blast it if I give him not another. Let this woman wait, and bring me his slave."

  Ptoth turned to Bathos, seized him by an arm, and flung him at the feet of the woman on the couch.

  Kalamita put out a pink-nailed foot and touched him. "Come, get up, how are you called?"

  "Bathos," the servant faltered.

  "Listen, then, Bathos," Kalamita continued. "Canst find the way over which my captain led you, and return?"

  "Aye, if I be granted the chance."

  "It will be granted, provided you will bear a message."

  "Aye, I will bear it."

  "Then give ear. It is for your lord. Return to his dwelling and from there to Himyra; seek out one in authority, and bid him send word to the Hupor Jason that the woman he has taken to wife and her child are in Kalamita's hands. Say further that they shall be taken to a place I know of and held until I have received word from him, and that I shall wait his coming in a hunting house, one of my possessions, in the mountains north of Cathur's border, half a sun's journey, where, when he comes to listen to my requirements, he will be led by men who will lie in watch. Repeat now my own words to me, Tamarizian canor, and make no mistake in the telling. I desire that this Hupor Jason fails not to understand."

  Bathos complied. Kalamita nodded and turned to Ptoth. "He has his lesson. Take him and see him put ashore. That done, see that we turn north at once, and say to Gor that I deny my presence to any, as you pass him. Take also the blue girl with you. I would deal with the other alone. You may leave her the child."

  Ptoth threw up an arm in flat-handed salute and bowed, motioned Bathos to precede him, and caught Maia by an arm. I glanced at Jason, and found his expression one of intense attention. He seemed to feel my gaze, however, and shook his head slightly, as though to say this was no time for anything more than observation.

  I turned back to the two women, now confronting one another. Ptoth and his charges had vanished. They were alone. For a moment each seemed appraising the other; then Kalamita rose.

  It was like Aphrodite rising, the tissue of the draperies dependent from the gem-incrusted girdle clasping her rounded body seeming no more than a white foam, a shimmering streaking of froth, more than half revealing what it concealed. She went a lithe pace forward and paused.

  "So, at last I see Tamarizia's most beautiful woman, and find her rather pale of feature, rather wide-eyed, possessed of a not unattractive figure, but scarcely so favored of Adita as I have been led to believe."

  "Favored rather by Ga, the true woman, Kalamita," Naia returned, glancing down at the child in her arms. "You do well to call Adita, goddess of unclean love."

  For the moment the Zollarian made no answer. Once more her yellow eyes flashed. Scarcely, I thought, had she looked for the cold taunt from Naia's lips, aimed at her own unsavory reputation.

  "By Bel, you dare such speech to me! Think you I have it in mind to treat you as my prisoner or a guest?"

  "As prisoner, I pray Zitu. Other treatment from Kalamita were disgrace."

  "By Bel!" Kalamita mouthed again, her face distorted with passion, and flung herself back on her couch. "You have a bold tongue at least. How think you your Mouthpiece of Zitu will accept your being prisoner to Kalamita?"

  "Jason, my lord, will answer that question to Zollaria and Kalamita in person."

  "Bel grant it." All at once Kalamita laughed. "If so I shall have something to say to that self-exalted spirit—that panderer to priests, who scorned the open offer of my favor for yours."

  Once more I glanced at Croft, and found his face contorted at the woman's reference to the time he was captive during the Mazzerian war. And, too, I found myself thinking that here was the old situation of a woman scorned.

  Then Naia of Aphur was speaking. "Jason, my lord, like to the wild gnuppa of the mountains, prefers that the fountain at which his thirst is slaked be clean—and like it once it is
captured, when led to a foul spring, he refused."

  "Thou fool." Kalamita sprang up. "Think you not I shall make you repent these words—or that, save this Mouthpiece give head to my demands and those of my nation, he shall return to your arms, or see your offspring again?"

  "Nay," Naia said, as Kalamita came to a panting pause before her, "these things lie with the gods. Tell me, Zollarian, stand I prisoner to all your nation, or to Kalamita alone?"

  I felt a quiver shake me. Naia of Aphur had herself in hand. She knew Croft and I were present, that we could see and hear and understand. And she asked a question, fully aware that our presence was something Kalamita could not know.

  Nor did she. Something like gloating leaped into her tawny eyes as she turned again to her couch and sat down.

  "So," she said, smiling coldly, "we begin to stand on common ground. You stand prisoner to all Zollaria, wife of Jason, you and Jason, Son of Jason. There be two forms of warfare, Aphur, that of wits as well as that or arms. Wherefore, in your capture and that of your child, I serve both the interests of my country and my own. It was so Bandhor, my brother, and I planned."

  Naia nodded. Her tone became one of musing. "Bandhor and Kalamita, his sister, on whose beauty he mounted to his position as general of all Zollaria's armies, rather than by any ability of his own, and the court of Zollaria at Berla, have planned before."

  "Aye," said Kalamita quickly, "we planned, and had won, save for the undreamed weapons this Mouthpiece of yours brought against us—weapons against which no army might stand. Yet before he reclaims Naia of Aphur and her suckling—the secrets of those weapons shall be known. The Zollarian and the Tamarizian armies shall stand on equal footing again. Your Mouthpiece and your nation shall go down through Naia of Aphur—and what then of Jason's son?"

  Once more I caught my breath. Once more Naia of Aphur went pale. I saw the astral form beside me clench its shadowy hands, sensed something of Jason's emotion, and then Naia of Aphur made answer.

  "Yet not so surely on equal terms, Zollaria, since he who made the weapons of which you desire the secret may have others still in mind. 'Tis a poor plan to purchase or barter with unlaid eggs."

  But Kalamita stretched her rosy arms and limbs with a tinkle of little bells, and remained upon the couch. A glint of something like amusement waked in her narrow eyes.

  "Your position is worth considering, Aphur," she said slowly. "It may even be put in the agreement that he shall refrain from attempting what you suggest—or that, should he attempt it, the act be an excuse for war."

  "In which, were the excuse used against her, Zollaria would perchance again be foiled?"

  "And Naia of Aphur, and Jason, Son of Jason, be emptied of the spirit."

  "Nay—that is with Zitu," Naia made answer. "Ere this my lord has saved me from the embrace of Zilla. I trust him wholly." And all at once she smiled.

  Kalamita frowned. "By Bel, at least you have spirit."

  "Which will not break before you, Priestess of Adita." Naia began a slow rocking of the infant Jason in her arms.

  The act seemed to drive Kalamita to fury. Once more she lifted herself to a half-sitting posture. "Go—hide yourself in one of the rooms yonder—get out of my sight."

  Then, as Naia moved toward the mouth of the passage and the curtained doors of its rooms, she relaxed. A quiver shook her. "Now, Bel and Adita befriend me, and give me my will of this woman. Adita, judge between us and blast her beauty. Her son to thee, Bel, if Tamarizia refuses our demands as a sacrifice. I swear it."

  "Come." I sensed Croft's emotion-clogged direction.

  We made our way outside. The ship was in motion, the benches filled with straining rowers. Kalamita's galley was straining north, bearing Naia of Aphur and Jason, Son of Jason, helpless captives aboard her.

  "Where now?" I asked.

  "Zitra." Croft seized my arm in his grasp. Then the creeping galley, the moonlighted flood of the outer ocean, were behind us, the tumbled region of Aphur's hills were beneath us. They too fell away and gave place to the shimmer of the Central Sea. An island appeared in its center—the walls of a mighty city. White they were as milk in the moonlight—white as the foam of the sea. And the city was white when we reached it, all white and purple shadows, with the mighty pyramid of Zitu lifting the pure white temple on its loft top above the walls.

  "Zitra," said Croft again. "I've got to get back in the flesh."

  And even as he spoke, I sensed that we were in a room somewhere within the pyramid itself. Bare was its floor of tessellated paving, bare were its walls save for here and there a light in a metal sconce. Bare, too, it seemed of furnishings, save for a chest of metal, a stool and a couch, on which the body of Jason found a place.

  The astral Jason seated himself beside it, and fastened me with his eyes. "You heard, Murray. You see what they intend." And then his expression altered. "Saw you ever a more glorious woman than Naia, wife of Jason? Well, I've got to get to work. I've got to save her."

  "Just how?"

  "I don't know," he admitted rather slowly. "Beyond the first step, that is. I'll explain things to Jadgor and Lakkon, of course, and I'll have a wireless sent to Robur at Himyra. After that—well—you heard the instructions given Bathos. There's no denying Kalamita has won the first trick. I think I'll fall in so far with her proposal and meet her face to face."

  "And thereby lose the second trick and the game altogether. Do you really think if you went up there to meet that tawny she devil, the Mouthpiece of Zitu—Tamarizia's big man—would be given chance to return?"

  For a moment after I finished Croft said nothing, and then, "By Zitu—Murray, you're right! I must have been blind! I'll—I'll have to send another than myself. We've got to keep a few cards in our hand. But—consider my position."

  "I do," I said. "I understand it perfectly, old man. I don't expect a man to keep cool in a game where the stakes are his wife and son."

  He shook his head. "It isn't that only, Murray. I dare not sacrifice Tamarizia, either—and I won't fail Naia. Think, man—think—there must be a way to serve both ends."

  "Perhaps what Naia herself suggested," I made tentative answer.

  Pride flashed momentarily in his eyes and died. "The invention of another—a superior weapon," he said. "Zitu—the thought fired me when she named it. Hah! She knew we were present—and she led the conversation to inform us in advance of what was proposed. It was like her, Murray, but—man, how can I risk it? You heard that fiend of Adita's oath after Naia left her—to Bel with Jason's son."

  "I know," I said slowly.

  "But do you know its meaning?"

  "No," I admitted.

  "Murray, they practise the hellish rites of ancient Phoenicia in the northern nation. The child would be burned."

  Burned—Jason, Son of Jason—a living sacrifice! The rites of the Phoenicians! The thought staggered me, revolted, as it lifted to mind the picture of Moloch—the brazen god into whose insensate arms children and babes and maidens were cast—and I recalled that, as well as Moloch, that savage divinity had been known as Bel. Bel—Moloch—flame. On impulse I named the thing to Croft.

  "Zitu—God," he said, and then, "Man—it may be the answer, if there is nothing else. Now, I've got to let Zud and Jadgor and Lakkon know what has happened. And I've got to get a message off to Robur. He's Naia's cousin, as I've told you, and I love him like a brother. Will you go with me on my missions, or will you return to your body, as I must to mine?"

  "If you don't mind," I decided, "I'd like to know all that happens, and I'll linger around until dawn."

  He nodded. "I'll be glad to feel you with me, and as soon as I reach Himyra I'll manage to visit you again. Look into the thing you suggested, won't you?"

  "Go on. Get about your business," I told him. "I'll have the information for you the next time we meet, if I can find a certain man."

  The body beside which he had been sitting raised itself on the couch and swung its feet around. It rose. "You've got t
o find him, man," Jason's physical voice told me without making the least break in the conversation, as he began to dress. "You know, Murray, I can perceive you dimly even so, and I can get your thought waves, of course—just as Naia was able to do the same thing the night of Jason's birth—so if you have any more suggestions to offer in what occurs inside the next few hours, make them of course. I'm not exactly myself. My spirit is still hot within me, where presently I think now it is going to grow deadly cold."

  He jerked the fastenings of his leg casings into position and clasped the belt of a short sword about him. "Now, I'm going before Zud first."

  He turned to a door that slid back before his touch into a recess in the massive wall. I followed him into a corridor, constructed top and floor and sides of huge blocks and slabs of stone, lighted at intervals by a lamp whose rays served to no more than partly dispel the night-shrouding gloom. Age—age—the age of the pyramids of Egypt. And then he paused before another door, lifted his sword, and rapped with its hilt for admittance.

  "Who calls on Zud?" a voice came muffled through the door.

  "Jason, Mouthpiece of Zitu, man of Zitu."

  The door slid back. Zud stood before us, blinking aged eyes. "Mouthpiece of Zitu, what does this visit betide?"

  "Work of Zitemku and his agents," Croft said hoarsely, stepping inside the high priest's apartments and pausing while Zud closed the door.

  "Thou knowest of my sleeps, O man of Zitu—and what occurs at times when my body lies sleeping, and how my spirit gains knowledge beyond the power of most men in the gaining—for I have explained to thee, and shown thee somewhat, O Zud, so that by thyself something of the same power was attained," he went on, and gave Zud a brief account of what had happened.

  "Zitu," stammered the high priest, advancing a step to lay a withered hand on Jason's shoulder—"may he befriend thee, and guard the woman I know thou lovest. In what way may I aid thee, Jason?"