The Black Flame

by Stanley G. Weinbaum

  The PrincessI hate!"

  "See!" she whispered. "You like the Master! Tom, he's as bad as the Princess. He's subtle, scheming, insidious! His charm is poisonous. Don't let him talk you overplease!"

  He was startled at her vehemence. But the Master had his word now. Could he break it? He was more than half convinced of the great ruler's sincerity. After all, Evanie was only a sweet, impulsive country girl whose grandfather had been killed. Something of his thoughts must have shown in his expression, for her face grew suddenly hard.

  "If I believed you were turning away from us to them," she said tensely, "I'd despise you, Tom. But I believe in you! Believe you're strong enough to resist the trickery of the Immortals. Don't fail me."

  He could not answer her then, for the maid, Sora, came in with a tray of food. She placed it on a cleverly constructed swinging arm that held it above the bed. It was a silent meal. Sora's presence put a restraint on them, and Evanie was cold, eyeing Connor suspiciously.

  He was relieved when they finished and the woman departed with the tray. He found a box of the magically selflighting cigarettes, and puffed moodily, while Evanie watched him in silence.

  A rap sounded. A Palace guard entered, bowed, and handed Connor a tiny package and an envelope sealed with the imprint of the Midgard Serpent, and departed.

  Connor broke the seal and slipped a card from within, read it, and whistled. There was a queer expression on his face when he handed it to Evanie. Written on it in script as fine and precise as engraving were the two sentences:

  We desire your presence at once in our laboratory in the East Chambers. Show our medallion to the guard at your door.

  Margarita, Urbis Regina, Soroque Domini.

  The royal "we." It was no invitation, but a command. Connor stared at Evanie, who stared back with narrowed eyes.

  "Well?" he said at last.

  "Well?"

  "What can I do? Ignore it and expose both of us to her angerif she's such a devil as you say?"

  "Oh, go!" snapped Evanie. "You and your ancient strength and courage! You're like any other man before the Black Flame of Urbsjust a fooli Go!"

  "And leave you?"

  "I'll have Sora for company," she retorted. "Go ahead. Burn yourself at the Flame, and see if I care."

  "I don't see what else I can do than go," he muttered unhappily.

  He turned moodily to the door, stripping the wrapper from the tiny package. A beautifully cast golden disc lay in his hand, with the pure features of the Princess in high relief.

  The guard outside challenged him at once. It gave him a grim pleasure to flash the medallion in the fellow's face, to see him salute amazedly and step aside. Connor took the elevator to the ground floor, and passed moodily into the vast cavity of the Throne Room.

  He passed through Martin Sair's disorderly chamber and finally to his destination. Margaret of Urbs sat with a glass of purple wine in one hand and the inevitable cigarette in the other, her dainty sandaled feet on a soft footstool. She wore Urban dress of glistening silver, above which her black hair gleamed like metal. She gave him a sardonic smile.

  "You may kiss my sandal," she said.

  "Or the hem of your skirt," he retorted. "Why did you send me that note?"

  She gestured at the vision screen beside her.

  "Mostly to watch you and Evanie quarrel over it."

  "Then you know my opinion of you."

  "Yes. I was rather amused."

  "Well, if you've ceased to be amused, may I go back?"

  "Not immediately," said the Princess. "Don't you think I owe you a little amusement in return?"

  "I'll forgive the obligation."

  "But I'm very circumspect about my debts," she insisted, with that maddening twinkle of mockery in the eyes that dared him. "Isn't there anything about the Palaceor in the worldthat interests you? I'll take you sightseeing."

  It was an opportunity, at that. There certainly was much he would like to see in this world that had grown up a thousand years after he was born. He hesitated. The inkyhaired girl gestured at a chair and he sat down. Without permission he poured himself a goblet of the wine beside her. It was quite different from the still wines of Ormon; sweet, sparkling, richand potent.

  "I'd like to see Eartheye," he said, musingly.

  "Oh, Asia's too far!" she quickly protested. "I'm only giving you an hour or so."

  "Let's have something on the vision screen from Eartheye, then," he suggested. "How about Mars?"

  "Well, it's night over Asia." She snapped the screen on with a negligent hand and said, "Eartheye." In a moment a bearded face appeared with a respectful salute. "Put on Mars," she drawled. "The central region of Solis Lacus."

  In a moment a rosy glow suffused the screen, resolving into focus as a ruddy plain with a greenish center. Connor gazed spellbound. The planet of mystery at a distance of two miles!

  Enigmatical dark spots of strangely suggestive regularity were distinguishable, a lacy tracery of cabalistic lines, the flash of something bright that might be water. A pygmy civilization? He wondered dizzily.

  "I'd like to see that at first hand!" he murmured.

  "So would I," said Margaret of Urbs. "I've tried to talk my esteemed brother into permission to make the attempt, without success so far."

  "You?" He remembered his conversation with Evanie and Jan Orm. "But it's two and a half years there and back!"

  "What's two and a half years to me?" She snapped off the screen. "Come on," she said rising.

  "Where now?"

  "For a little flight. I'll show you a Triangle"she glanced at him with a mocking smile"since you know their secretand yet live!"

  "No thanks to you!" Connor flashed at her.

  "No. Were you frightened?"

  "Did I seem so?"

  She shook her head.

  "Are you ever afraid?"

  "Often. I try not to show it."

  "I never am," she said, pulling a beampistol from a table drawer and snapping it to her waist. "Since we're leaving the Palace," she explained. "I intend to bring you back."

  He laughed and followed her through the Throne Room and up to a portion of the vast Palace roof below the South Tower. A Triangle stood there on a metal flooring. He noticed the pitting and excoriations where the blast had struck. The vehicle gleamed silver, far smaller than the ; giant ones he had seen in flight. Connor glanced curiously at the firing chamber at the apex, then at the name "SkyRat" engraved on the wall.

  "My SkyRat," said Margaret of Urbs. "The swiftest thing yet made by man. Your bullets are laggards beside it." She hesitated, and for a moment he could have sworn that there was a touch of shyness in her eyes. "I took one trip in thisnot so long ago," she said softly, "that I will never forget.

  The woods of Ormon arelovelydon't you think?"

  He made no answer to that, and followed her in. The tubular chamber was luxuriously fitted, with deep cushioned seats and room enough for comfortable sleeping quarters. When they were seated she depressed a lever and the throbbing roar of the blast began.

  Through the floorport he wa*ched the Palace drop away. Urbs Major unrolled beneath. There was a sensation of weight as the vehicle shot upward like an errant meteor.

  "Frightened?" laughed the Princess.

  Connor shrugged. "I've flown before," he said laconically.

  "Ohairplanes! Wait!"

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  DEATH FLIGHT?

  MINUTE BY MINUTE the Earth receded. It seemed not so much to drop as to diminish, as if the surface were condensing like a deflating balloon. Urbs Minor slipped smoothly into the square of vision and the whole panorama of the mighty city was belowGreater and Lesser Urbs with the gash of the canal between them, tiny as a toy village in the Swiss Alps.

  Kaatskill slid into the square, and a dozen other previously unseen suburbs of the vast metropolis.

  The aspiring towers of the Palace were small as pins in a carpet, and already a little east of them, as their radial flight
permitted the Earth's rotation to gain on the craft.

  The Earth began to seem hazy, and off to the north a snowwhite plain of clouds glistened. The vast bowl of the planet began slowly to hump in the center. It was inverting, beginning to seem spherical.

  Tom Connor jumped violently as a spark crackled off his thumb. A second stung the tip of his nose.

  The black silken hair of the Princess rose queerly in a cloud about the perfection of her face, and sparks raced along the metal of the hull.

  "The Heaviside ionization layer," she murmured. "Scared?"

  "No."

  Margaret of Urbs glanced at a dial.

  "Thirty thousand now."

  "Feet?"

  She laughed. "Meters."

  About twenty miles. And they were still accelerating. The surface below flowed continually inward.

  The sky darkened; a star appearedanother. Fifty stars; a thousandall glistening in a black sky where the sun blazed bluewhite. The Earth was decidedly globular now. The vast, inconceivable slope of the planet could be seen in all directions.

  Unconsciously Connor jumped as suddenly there came a sharp patter like hail.

  "Meteoric particles," said the girl, turning a knob. "Paige deflector," she explained.

  "For meteors as well as bullets, eh?" he suggested.

  "For the iron ones. A stone might get through."

  Uncomfortable thought. Minutes passedhalf an hour. Suddenly the Princess moved something.

  Connor was nearly lifted from his seat by the sudden lightness.

  "Deceleration," she said, glancing down at the colossal convexity below. "Three hundred miles. Are you frightened?"

  "Do you think so?"

  She smiled a taunt. "I'll turn off the deflectors," she murmured.

  There was a pattering roar. Something crashed glancingly above him and the floor tipped and spun like a juggler's platter. Margaret of Urbs laughed.

  "Might I ask the object?" he queried.

  "Yes," she said gently. "I'm going to commit suicide!"

  As he caught his breath sharply, unbelievingly, she moved the lever before her, and the throbbing roar of the blast died suddenly. The sensation of dizziness that followed was a thousand times worse than that Connor had experienced in the swift Palace elevators.

  He was utterly weightless. They were in a free fall!

  The Princess was laughing at him. Deep in those lustrous, inhumanly lovely seagreen eyes of hers was the glint of mockery.

  "Scared?" she whispered, as she had done repeatedly, and gave a low rippling chuckle at his silence. "Three hundred miles!" she jeered. A timeless interval. "Two hundred!"

  He couldn't shift his gaze from the Satanic beauty of her face, but he grimly fought his quivering lips to firmness. There was a low whine outside that rose abruptly to a screaming shriek that went gibbering across the world. The air! They had struck the atmosphere.

  The floor grew warm, almost hotit burned. At last Connor tore his eyes from the face of the Princess and gazed down at the uprushing planet.

  They were over ocean. What matter? At that speed it might as well be concrete. How high? Two milesa mile? Less each succeeding second. The scream was a great roaring now.

  "We're going to crash," he said evenly, knowing she couldn't hear him.

  Margaret of Urbs kicked a lever with a daintily casual foot. The blast roared outtoo late! Or was it? Irresistible weight oppressed Connor as the sea rushed upward. So close it was now that he saw the very waters hollowed by the blast. That near!

  But far enough. They were receding until the girl cut the blast again and set the rocket gently on the heaving swells of the Pacific.

  Connor gulped.

  "Nice flying," he said steadily. "How often can you do it?"

  "I don't know," she laughed. "I've never tried before. Scared?" The reiteration of that word was getting on his nerves as greatly as had the speed of the rocket.

  "Did I show it?" he asked.

  "I'm afraid not." Her voice changed suddenly. She rose, whipped the beampistol from her side. "If I can't frighten you," she said, her eyes glittering, "I can at least kill you!" The beam flashed over him.

  He took the shock without flinching. She slid her finger along the barrel until it stabbed harder, racking him. He bit his lips and gazed back into eyes, now deeply emerald. At last she laughed and returned the weapon to its place.

  "Were all ancients like you, Tom?" she murmured.

  Somehow he managed a calm reply.

  "Some stronger, some weaker," he said carelessly.

  "I think I couldlove you," she whispered.

  She thrust a hand suddenly toward him and involuntarily he started.

  "Afraid of one thing, at least, aren't you?" she jeered. "Afraid ofme!"

  Without warning he caught her arm, swept her suddenly to him. He pressed a fierce kiss on the perfection of her lips. She yielded instantly, returning the caress. For a moment her lips burned against his like strong wine, and lights coruscated in his spinning brain. With the Black Flame of Urbs in his arms, the world seemed to fall away as it had from the rising Triangle.

  He felt her lips move against his, heard her murmur: "Tom! Tom! I do love you. Say you love me!"

  "Love you? Love you?" he said. But just in time he caught that familiar gleam of mockery in her eyes.

  "Yes," he said. "Just as I love a drink of strong liquor!"

  He pushed her roughly away, grinning sardonically. Margaret of Urbs laughed, but he fancied there was a quaver in her laughter. It was the first time he had seen the diamond hardness of her poise so much as ruffled. That is, since he had seen her in her role of cruel Princess, the role she had played for seven hundred years. When he had seen her as a child of the woods she had been different.

  But she quickly regained her hard control over herself. She slapped a trifle viciously at the controls, and the SkyRat soared away from a boiling circle of ocean toward Urbs.

  Arrived there, the Princess said not a word, but left Tom Connor at once. He wandered irresolutely to his room and opened Evanie's door. She sat propped against some cushions while a man in the garb of a Palace servant leaned above her. Both turned startled faces toward him. In amazement he recognized the man as Jan Orm of Ormon!

  Tom Connor opened his mouth to cry an involuntary greeting to Jan Orm, but checked it at the sight of Jan's warning look and a gesture from Evanie. Of course! Jan was here in disguise, and there was the scanner with unwinking eye and attentive ear. Connor advanced to the side of Evanie's bed and bent over her.

  "Don't look at Jan when you talk," she said softly.

  "I won't. Lord, I'm glad to see you, Jan! I didn't know what might have happened to you."

  "I'm working in the kitchen," whispered Jan, nodding at a tray on the wallarm. He added eagerly:

  "Tom, you can help us! We need you."

  "Help you to do what?"

  'To finish" Jan began, but Evanie interrupted. "Help me to escape," she whispered, then shot a glance at Jan Orm. "Be careful of him, Jan," she warned. "He's been around the Black Flame."

  Connor reddened. "Look here!" he muttered. "Here's exactly how I stand. For safety sake, I've sworn to the Master to make no move against him for the present, and to tell him what I know of mathematics. That can't hurt you, can it? Evanie's safety is worth more to me than that."

  "What's the value of an oath to the Master?" he growled. "That needn't bind you!"

  "I keep my word," Connor said, as grimly.

  "But your oath doesn't keep you from helping me to escape, does it?" whispered Evanie.

  "I guess notbut what's the use of it? To suffer another Messenger?"

  "This time," declared Evanie, "I'll fight off any Messenger. I was worn out before, exhausted, almost helpless."

  "What can I do?" asked Connor, a little reluctantly.

  "Are you free to move as you will about the Palace?"

  "Not entirely."

  "Well, I want to see the Master. I must see him."<
br />
  "Why don't you call him and ask for an interview?" Connor asked. That seemed simple enough.

  "I have. All I can get is a statement from the vision room that he's busy in his quarters and can't come. I'm I not supposed to leave my bed, you know." She paused. "It's probably true. Jan has heard that there's a Conclave of the Immortals of the South day after tomorrow."

  She glanced at Connor imploringly. "Can't you get me to him, Tom? PleaseI must see him."

  Connor smiled, amused, as a swift thought crossed his mind. Margaret of Urbs must indeed have been perturbed this morning. She had forgotten to reclaim her medallion. If he were to use it before she remembered"Perhaps I can help you reach him, Evanie," he whispered. "If you'll come at once."

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  THE CONSPIRATORS

  THE GUARDS PASSED THEM without question, with only a glance at the medallion.

  When they reached the anteroom beyond the arch they at once saw the Master at his littered desk.

  Evanie dropped gracefully to one knee as they neared the ruler. But Connor stood erect and stared at Margaret of Urbs, who sat in a chair by the window, a book on her lap, a black cigarette in her fingers spiraling smoke as she stared back at him.

  The Master's eyes flickered over them.

  "May I ask how you two managed to arrive here?" he inquired mildly.

  Connor tossed the medallion on the desk, and his lips twisted in wry amusement when he saw the quivering start that twitched the dainty lips of the Princess. She arose quickly and moved to the Master's side. She and Evanie gazed at each other across the desk. The eyes of Margaret of Urbs were faintly disdainful, but Evanie's were hostile.

  It was Tom Connor's first opportunity to make a firsthand comparison of the two. He hated himself for making it, but here it was thrust upon him.

  The Princess was a trifle taller, a bit more slender than Evanie, and infinitely more beautiful, lovely as Evanie was. It wasn't fair, Connor told himself bitterlyterribly unfair, in fact, to compare Evanie's beauty with the unearthly beauty of the Black Flame of Urbs. It was like contrasting the simple loveliness of a wild rose to the splendor of an orchid, or a blown milkweed butterfly to a starflying Luna moth.