Eric John Stark

by Leigh Brackett

  Well, and of course, thought Stark. One tuned to their wave-output, one to ours, because the two systems are not compatible. I should have realized that. Otherwise I would have picked up all the human chatter around me as well.

  Hrillin was watching him. He raised his hand again, three times.

  Hrillin beckoned. “Come then.”

  Stark beckoned in his turn, to Balin and the others.

  “No,” said Hrillin. “Only you. Let the others rest.”

  Stark shook his head. He smiled mockingly and made certain motions, remembering one or two of the things he had learned from the talisman during the time that he listened to the voices of the city.

  Hrillin and some of the others laughed. It was a sound as musical as falling water, but Stark did not find it at all pleasant. They turned and moved up the broad street with their swaying, capering steps. Hrillin called to his fellows down the street to let the others come.

  “Remember,” he said to Stark. “We can destroy you all, in one second, if we wish.”

  Stark raised his hand, saying yes. But to Balin he said, “Maybe.” He explained what Hrillin had said. “It’s possible. Pass the word down to stay together. No panic, and no provocations. But there’s something wrong here. They’re frightened.”

  The thin gold woman tossed her arms like the branches of a wind-torn tree, pantomiming destruction.

  They moved in a long line down the avenue. Stark repeated what had been said, so that Balin and the others would know.

  “Ban Cruach protects them?” said Balin. “They have a talisman?” He seemed unable to believe this. So did Thanis, and those others like Lugh who were close enough to hear. Only Ciaran said, “Ban Cruach appears to have been a generous man. Let us hope that he keeps his promises—all of them.”

  Stark warned them to silence when the aliens should hold their talisman.

  It was growing dark. In the shadowy cross-streets and the squares along the way, more and more of the thin tall figures gathered, circling, following, watching. All at once, all over the city, lights sprang on.

  Thanis gasped, and then whispered, “How can anything be so hateful, yet be so beautiful?”

  The streets were filled now with a soft radiance of color. The tall thin shapes in their fluttering silks moved through pools of gold and green, blue and violet, orange and blood-red. All the windows of the buildings showed a clear silver-white against the colors. Rank after rank they passed by, giving a million narrow glimpses into public halls with many slender pillars, and the odd-shaped rooms of houses, all deserted.

  Stark listened to the fluting calls of the creatures who followed.

  “There are not many of them,” he said quietly. “I think not as many as we. They seem to have no real leader. Hrillin happened to be the first to see us, so that apparently entitles him to lead for this…” He hesitated. “ ‘Game’ is the only word.” The wild disorder of their talk was appalling. “Their whole existence here seems to be one great anarchic game. They murder for fun. Not simple murders. They do all kinds of things for fun, and physical torture is one of the least of them. They’ve had thousands of years to invent perversions.”

  “I heard them,” Balin said. “Only briefly, but enough.”

  Lugh said, “But if they have no leader, and they are so few, how do they force the victims…”

  “They don’t have to,” Stark said. “The victims get more fun out of it than anybody. It seems to be their moment of supreme fulfillment.”

  Thanis said furiously, “Ban Cruach would never have promised his help to these monsters.”

  “That was a long time ago,” Stark said. “I doubt that they were monsters then.” He looked around at the city, with the massive bulk of the tower rising over it. “They live in prison. They die in prison. They’ve been dying for a long time. It’s small wonder they’ve gone mad with it.”

  “I do not pity them,” Balin said with a shiver of repulsion.

  “Nor I,” said Stark. “Any more than they would pity me while they were watching me die.”

  They came into an enormous circle. In the center of the circle was a pavilion, the roof curved and peaked, upheld on many columns, the whole thing done in shades of purple. Hrillin beckoned Stark and the others on, and from all sides now the aliens began to gather closer. Broad stripes of gold like sunrays laid into the pavement led to the heart of the pavilion, where there was a low dais holding a glitter of crystal.

  Embedded in the crystal was the body of a man, a human man, and quite old, dressed in antique armor. Stark recognized him. He had seen that face before, carved in stone and turned forever toward the Gates of Death. He was looking at Ban Cruach.

  A wave of awe swept over the people of Kushat. They pushed and crowded, delicately, as though they were in a temple, but determinedly, surrounding the crystal coffin, and all through what followed there was a constant motion as those in front gave way to others moving up from behind to see.

  From some secret niche beside the coffin Hrillin took the mate to Ban Cruach’s talisman and held it up, and stared while it warmed and glowed between his hands.

  “Now,” said Stark, “do you understand me, Hrillin?”

  The alien flinched, as though he found the impact of human speech as distasteful as Stark had found theirs.

  “I understand.”

  “This is as Ban Cruach and your forefathers wished. Your people made these things we call talismans so that our two races might talk together.”

  Hrillin glanced aside at Ban Cruach, lying still in his crystal bed.

  “He promised to protect us,” Hrillin said. “He promised to guard the Gates of Death so that his world could never trespass onto ours.”

  The aliens echoed that, swaying and tossing their arms. The fluting voices rang from the pavilion roof. “He promised! By the Power of the talisman…”

  “And he kept that promise,” Stark said, “As long as his people held Kushat.”

  Hrillin started. He stared at Stark.

  “Kushat? Kushat has fallen?”

  A wild crying broke out among the aliens. They pressed closer around Hrillin, around the humans. Some of them apparently in an ecstasy of excitement, pricked themselves and each other with their steel nails, drawing blood.

  “Yesterday,” Stark said.

  “Yesterday,” repeated Hrillin “Yesterday Kushat fell.” Suddenly he swayed forward and screamed. “You had no right! You had no right to let it fall!”

  The fluting voices shrieked in rage, in hysteria and fear. The tall thin bodies swayed wildly, whirled and tossed. Stark thought the creatures were going to attack, and perhaps they might have, but the men of Kushat drew their weapons and the aliens moved back, circling round and round. More began to gash themselves. The game was not going quite as they had thought, Stark felt. And yet they were becoming more and more excited by it, perhaps simply because it was unpredictable and new.

  He said to Hrillin, “The men of Kushat died defending their city. They could hardly do more.” He could not keep all of what he was thinking out of what he was saying; the words formed themselves in his mind and Hrillin read them before he could suppress them. Some inscrutable emotion flickered in Hrillin’s eyes.

  “We do not like each other,” he said. “Let it rest at that.”

  “Very well. But now we come to you because Ban Cruach made us a promise, too.”

  “A promise? A promise?” Hrillin was scornful. “His promise was to us. We gave him a strong weapon to fight his wars, and in exchange he gave us peace.” He placed his hand with the cruel thumb-spur affectionately on the coffin. “When he was an old man he left his people and came to us. We were a great city, then. All this valley was warm and populous. He walked our streets and talked to our philosophers and wise men. It is said that he wrote our history, in the human tongue, though no one knows if that is tr
ue.” He paused, looking at the humans. “We are the oldest race on Mars. We knew you before you walked erect. We built our cities when you lived in holes in the rock and barely understood fire.”

  The aliens swayed, lifting their long arms.

  “But,” said Hrillin, “you bred faster. And we grew old. We built our towers in the cold lands, and for a long time we were not troubled. But even the planet grew old, and men were everywhere, and one by one we abandoned our cities because there was no one left to live in them. This valley was our last stronghold.”

  “It is a stronghold no longer,” Stark said. “Men are on their way. And this was Ban Cruach’s promise to us, the other side of your bargain. If ever need arose, we were to bring the talisman through the Gates of Death, and the great power Ban Cruach once had would be given to us again.”

  He held up the talisman in a gesture of finality.

  “Give us that power. We will drive away these men who are enemies to us both, and Kushat will continue to guard the Gates as she always has. Otherwise…”

  He let his hands fall.

  “Otherwise you must fight this battle by yourselves.”

  “Fight,” said the fluting voices. There was a whirl of laughter, strange and cruel.

  “Give them the power, Hrillin, why not?”

  “Yes, give them the power!”

  “Let them be strong like Ban Cruach and fight the world away from us.”

  “Shall I?” said Hrillin, swaying, dancing where he stood, gesturing with malicious arms. “Shall I?” He bent to Stark. “Will you go?”

  “Give us the weapons, Hrillin, and we’ll go.”

  “Very well,” said Hrillin, and turned to his people. “Give them the weapons! Bring all we have. Give them! These are the sons of Ban Cruach our protector. Give them the weapons!”

  They began to chant. “Give them the weapons!” Those who carried the bulky tubes pressed them into human hands. Others ran away and returned quickly with more. In a few minutes the men of Kushat had forty of the globed weapons.

  “Are you joyous now?” asked Hrillin, and thrust the last of the tubes into Stark’s hand. “See, thus and thus do you do with it, but be careful. It will kill much more than you think.”

  He drew back. All the aliens drew back. Balin held a tube in his own hands. He looked at it, his face alight with triumph, and then he turned to the crystal coffin where Ban Cruach lay. “He did it, Stark. He kept his promise.” There was a glitter of tears in his eyes. “I thank you,” he said to the aliens. “We of Kushat all thank you.” He turned suddenly and faced Ciaran. “Now you can watch your red wolves die.”

  He shouted to the people, “You have the power now—the power of Ban Cruach! Let us go and take Kushat!”

  The people roared. They started to move out of the pavilion and into the street, with Balin running on to lead them. They shouted, “Kushat! Kushat!” until the echoes struck through the city like the ringing of flawed bells. They poured back along the avenue. And now Stark was at the rear of the march with Ciaran, and Lugh and Rogain, who were armed with the alien weapons. Thanis had raced ahead to be with Balin, seeing already the way her room would Iook with everything back as it had been before.

  The people were in a hurry and they moved fast, through the pools of colored light. Stark watched from side to side, and he saw that Ciaran was doing so too.

  He could not see anything. There seemed to be no reason for alarm. Yet he was alarmed. And in his hand the talisman of Ban Cruach brought him not one single word.

  He had a horrid picture of the aliens bending and swaying with their fingers pressed to their lips, their eyes bright with the excitement of playing a game where no one was allowed to speak.

  Still they went on, and nothing happened.

  The people began to pick up their burdens again from where they had left them. They put on their cloaks and shared their bundles and hurried along toward the terminus of the warm zone. They were in high spirits, their mouths full of the sweet taste of victory. Ciaran walked with her head high and her face a mask of stone. Lugh and Rogain fondled the strange weapons. Stark, impatient and nervous, kept looking back and seeing nothing, and straining toward the clean cold air ahead.

  Perhaps half the people had left the city when the talisman brought Stark one unguarded cry, quickly silenced.

  The cry was “Now, now!” and it held such a note of hungry eagerness that Stark did not wait for more. He shouted to the people to leave their belongings and run. He pushed Ciaran ahead of him, yelling at Lugh and Rogain to be ready with their weapons. They all began to run. And then all at once the lights went out.

  Stark blundered into someone and stopped. It was as though he had been struck blind. He looked up at the sky. The stars were hidden by a shimmering cloud and the whole city was black as the pit. People were stumbling about, yelling, on the edge of panic.

  Then the screaming began.

  Stark felt something close by him, smelled a scent like the odor of dry leaves, and he knew suddenly that they were all around, keeping very quiet, their narrow feet soundless on the pavement, moving among the people. They must have come by secret ways of their own, through the empty houses and the unused halls. Now, above his head in the darkness, there was a little sound of suppressed laughter, horribly like a giggling child. A long thin finger brushed his face.

  He yelled and lashed out violently with the globed weapon that he could not fire because of his own people. But the sharp thumb-spur had already pricked his neck, and whatever drug was on it acted very swiftly. He did not know whether the blow landed. Vaguely, very vaguely, as long arms wrapped around him and dragged him into unconsciousness, he heard the sounds of panic as the people of Kushat rushed blindly toward the outer night.

  XV

  The lights were on again.

  He lay in a pool of light. The pool was deep orange, a suffocating color, very rasping to the nerves. Things moved in it, tall things that pranced and fluttered, trailing bright streamers.

  “He’s awake,” they said.

  The talisman lay on his breast, between his crossed hands.

  “See?” they said. “His eyes are open….”

  He sat up convulsively, his brain still unsteady from the drug. He was naked and unarmed. Only the talisman was left. He looked up at them and hated them, futilely, and feared them with a cold sick fear. His body had tiny cuts all over it that stung and pulled when he moved.

  Hrillin came and bent above him, holding the other talisman. “You lost Kushat,” he said, and Stark knew that Hrillin was referring not to him alone but to all the humans. “You lost Kushat and so the world rolls in on us.” He raked himself with his free hand and blood ran down his narrow chest. His eyes burned. He twitched and swayed with a lunatic joy. “Do you feel the greatness of this tune? Here we end. All the long, long ages, piled and gathered, and we hear them into the dark.”

  The figures behind him danced stiffly, fluting wild cries without words.

  Stark said, “But you gave us the weapons…”

  “The weapons!” Hrillin whirled and took from one of his fellows a tube, perhaps the same one Stark had been carrying. He pointed the globed end at Stark and pressed the firing stud. He pressed it and pressed it, laughing.

  “I said these would kill more than you thought! Not enemies. Hopes, and dreams, and faith, but not enemies.” He ceased to press the stud and held the weapon upright like a club. “Ban Cruach promised you power. We have no power. The city warms us and lights us and gives us food and drink because it was built to do so, but beyond that we have nothing. All else is dead, worn out, corroded, crumbled, useless. Now the city ends, and that is the end of everything. The end of the promise….”

  He brought his two hands together, striking the useless weapon hard against the talisman, and the talisman shattered and fell.

  “The end!” cried Hr
illin. “This is our night of carnival. We dance toward oblivion, laughing, shouting the name of Ban Cruach!”

  He struck the talisman out of Stark’s hands and broke it, and the contact was gone. Forever.

  They swooped on him in the orange light, in a swaying semi-circle, and began to prick him with their spurs. And as Hrillin had said, they were laughing.

  Stark ran.

  He fled along the colored streets. They had brought him to a part of the city that was strange to him, away from the avenue. The great stone tower rose high above the roofs in one direction, and in the other, toward the perimeter of the city, he thought the lights chopped off short, as though the aliens had left a barrier of darkness against the people of Kushat.

  By now the people would have learned that the precious weapons were useless. How many of them would dare to come back into the city, through total darkness and armed only with their swords, he did not know. He did not think there would be enough to be useful to him, and there was also a question of time.

  The lighted streets were alive with excitement, with joy and murder.

  Stark was not the only human they had taken in their stealthy raid. He could hear cries from other streets. Once he saw a man go stumbling across an open space ahead, with his tall pursuers deliberately matching stride and driving him. And at a place where two streets met there was a pink-and-gold cactus with a woman impaled on its spikes.

  He was a swift runner, but he knew that they could outdistance him. He proved it fairly quickly, trying to break back down a long wide avenue that he was sure must lead to the outside. There was not a sign of a pursuer when he entered it, but at the second cross-street there they all were, laughing and springing toward him with blue light glinting from their spurs. He turned, and they let him run, but one—he thought it was the female with the amethyst streamers down her back—caught up and gashed his buttocks lightly, just to prove she could, before dancing away out of his reach.