Leigh Brackett

“ Kynon of Shun came in triumph to Delgaun's palace. Standing beside the litter, he gave his hand to the woman, who stepped out and walked beside him through the bronze door.
The women of Shun are tall and strong, bred to stand beside their men in war as well as love, and this red-haired daughter of the Drylands was enough to stop a man's heart with her proud step and her white shoulders, and her eyes that were the color of smoke. Stark's gaze followed her from a distance. ”

“ I hold the secret of the Sending-on of Minds, which this great ox Kynon pretended to have. I can give you life now—and forever. Remember, wild man—forever!"
He bent his dark face to hers, so that their lips touched, and murmured, "Would I have you forever, Berild?"
"Until you tire of me—or I of you." She kissed him, and then added mockingly, "Delgaun has had me for a thousand years, and I am weary of him. So very weary!"
"A thousand years is a long time," said Stark, "and I am not Delgaun."
"No. You're a beast, a savage, a most magnificent cold-eyed animal, and that is why I love you." ”

“ In the desert below the coral cliffs the armies of Kynon were encamped. The tall warriors of Kesh and Shun waiting, with their women and their beasts and their shining spears, for the pipers to cry them over the Border. The skin tents and the long picket lines were too many to count. In the distance, a convertible Kallman spacer that Stark recognized as Knighton's made an ugly, jarring incongruity.
Lookouts sighted the two toiling figures in the distance. Men and women and children began to stream out across the sand, and presently a great cheering arose. ”

“ Men were bending over Luhar. Knighton, Walsh, Themis, Arrod. Stark saw that Delgaun was among them. He did not question at the time how word had gone back to Valkis and sent Delgaun racing across the dead sea bottom with his hired bravoes to search for the red-haired woman. It was right that Delgaun should be there.
In short ragged sentences, Stark told how Luhar and Freka had tried to kill him, and how Berild had been lost with him.
Kynon turned to the Venusian. Death was already glazing the cloud-grey eyes, but it had not quenched the hatred and the venom.
"He lies," whispered Luhar. ”

“ The lifeless land stretched away into darkness, a vast waste of desolation more lonely even than the desert. And between the sea bottom and the foothills, Stark saw the lights of Valkis.
II
There were many lights, far below. Tiny pinpricks of flame where torches burned in the streets beside the Low-Canal—the thread of black water that was all that remained of a forgotten ocean.
Stark had never been here before. Now he looked at the city that sprawled down the slope under the low moons, and shivered, the primitive twitching of the nerves that an animal feels in the presence of death. ”

“ Stark said, "I will remember."
He went with Berild to Kynon's quarters in the palace. He sat among Kynon's possessions, clothed in Kynon's flesh, and learned how Kynon's mind had planned to loose a red tide upon the peaceful cities of the Border.
Only a small part of his mind was attentive to this. The rest of it was concerned with the redness of Berild's hair and the warmth of her lips, and with the heady knowledge that it was possible to be alive and young forever.
Never to lose the pride of strength, never to know the dimming sight and failing mind of age. ”

“ Stark approached it, slipping through the ragged shadows as though he had no more weight to him than a drift of smoke. Once a door banged and a man came out of Kala's and passed by, going down to Valkis. Stark saw his face in the moonlight. It was the face of a beast, rather than a man. He muttered to himself as he went, and once he laughed, and Stark felt a loathing in him.
He waited until the sound of footsteps had died away. The ruined houses gave no sign of danger. A lizard rustled between the stones, and that was all. The moonlight lay bright and still on Kala's door. ”

“ They came out of the darkness so suddenly that Stark blinked in the unaccustomed light of torches set in great silver sconces on the walls.
The floor had been artificially smoothed, but otherwise this crypt was as the eroding action of the sea had shaped it out of the coral reef. It was not large, and it was like a cavern in a fairy tale, walled and roofed with the fantastic wreathing shapes of the rose-red coral. At one end there was a golden coffer set with flaming jewels. ”

“ Women looked at Stark. Women graceful as cats, bare to the waist, their skirts slit at the sides above the thigh, wearing no ornaments but the tiny golden bells that are the particular property of the Low-Canal towns, so that the air is always filled with their delicate, wanton chiming.
Valkis had a laughing, wicked soul. Stark had been in many places in his life, but never one before that beat with such a pulse of evil, incredibly ancient, but strong and gay. ”

“ She looked up at him, her eyes suddenly shrewd and probing. "Or do you still believe the nonsense you talked to Kynon, about the tribes?"
Stark smiled. "It's easy to have principles when there's no gain involved. No. I am as my name says—a man without a tribe. I have no loyalties. And if I had, would I remember them now?"
He held her, as she had said, between his hands, and they were very strong.
But even then, Berild could warn him.
"Keep faith with me, then! My wisdom is greater than yours, and I have powers you don't dream of. What I give, I can take away." ”

“ Brawny warriors of Kesh and Shun, making holiday beside the Low-Canal, where there was more water than any of them had seen in their lives.
They were in Valkis, these barbarians, but they were not part of it. Shouldering his way through the streets, Stark got the peculiar flavor of the town, that he guessed could never be touched or changed by anything.
In a square, a girl danced to the music of harp and drum. The air was heavy with the smell of wine and burning pitch and incense. ”

“ It was very late now, but Valkis was awake and stirring. Seething, rather. The narrow twisting ways were crowded. The laughter of women came down from the flat roofs. Torchlight flared, gold and scarlet, lighting the wineshops, making blacker the shadows of the alley-mouths.
Stark left his beast at a serai on the edge of the canal. The paddocks were already jammed. Stark recognized the long-legged brutes of the Dryland breed, and as he left a caravan passed him, coming in, with a jangling of bronze bangles and a great hissing and stamping in the dust. ”

“ Berild was picked up and carried on the shoulders of two chiefs, and men would have carried Stark also, but he fought them off.
Broad flights of steps were cut in the coral. The throng flowed upward along them. Ahead of them all went Eric John Stark, and he was smiling. From time to time he asked a question, and men drew back from that question, and his smile.
Up the steps and into the streets of Sinharat he went, with a slow, restless stride, asking,
"Where is Luhar of Venus?"
Every man there read death in his face, but they did not try to stop him. ”

“ They were officers of the Earth Police Control, bringing him a gift—twenty years in the Luna cell-blocks.
Twenty years in the grey catacombs, buried in the silence and the eternal dark.
He recognized the inevitable. He was used to inevitables—hunger, pain, loneliness, the emptiness of dreams. He had accepted a lot of them in his time. Yet he made no move to surrender. He looked out at the desert and the night sky, and his eyes blazed, the desperate, strangely beautiful eyes of a creature very close to the roots of life, something less and more than man. ”

“ And no one, not even Kynon himself, knows of it but you."
"You dream, wild man. The moon is in your eyes."
Stark shook his head slowly. "I know."
She laughed, and stretched her arms wide on the sand.
"But I am young," she said. "And men have told me I am beautiful. It is good to be young, for youth has nothing to do with ashes and empty skulls." ”

“ As they left the lights of Valkis behind, winding their way over the sand and the ribs of coral, dropping lower with every mile into the vast basin, it was hard to believe that there could be life anywhere on a world that could produce such cosmic desolation. ”

“ She asked, suddenly, "What do you know of the Ramas?"
"Nothing," he answered, "except that they don't exist now, if they ever did."
Fianna gave him an odd look. "Perhaps they don't. Will you listen to me, Earthman from Mercury? Will you get away, now that you know you're marked for death?"
Stark said, "No."
"Even if I tell you that Delgaun has set a trap for you at Kala's?"
"No. But I will thank you for your warning, Fianna." ”

“ Stark said. "What's going to happen when the people find out that this Rama stuff is just a myth?"
"They won't," said Kynon. "The crowns will be destroyed in battle, and it will be very tragic, but very final. No one knows how to make more of them. Oh, I can handle the people! They'll be happy enough, with good land and water."
He looked around then and said plaintively, "And now can we sit down and drink like civilized men?"
They sat. The wine went round, and the vultures of Valkis drank to each other's luck and loot, and Stark learned that the woman's name was Berild. ”

“ Stark studied him, with his cold cat-eyes. "Where do the men of Valkis come in—the men of Jekkara and Barrakesh? Where do we come in, the hired bravoes?"
Kynon smiled. It was a perfectly sincere smile, and it had no humor in it, only a great pride and a cheerful cruelty.
"We're going to build an empire," he said softly. "The City-States are disorganized, too starved or too fat to fight. And Earth is taking us over. Before long, Mars will be hardly more than another Luna. ”

“ Kynon beckoned Stark to his side, and pointed out at the cruel waste of sand, with here and there a reef of basalt black against the burning white.
"This is the country you will lead your men over. Learn it." He was speaking to Luhar as well. "Learn every water hole, every vantage point, every trail that leads toward the Border. There are no better fighters than the Dryland men when they're well led, and you must prove to them that you can lead. You'll work with their own chieftains—Freka, and the others you'll meet when we reach Sinharat." ”

“ Reaching over, he poured wine for Stark and held it out to him. "Now you know. Now we all know. So let's wash the dust out of our throats and get down to business."
Stark said, "No."
Kynon looked at him. "What now?"
"You're lying to your people," Stark said flatly. "You're making false promises, to lead them into war."
Kynon was genuinely puzzled by Stark's anger. "But of course!" he said. "Is there anything new or strange in that?"
Luhar spoke up, his voice acid with hate. "Watch out for him, Kynon. He'll sell you out, he'll cut your throat, if he thinks it best for the barbarians." ”

“ Stark spurred toward the women, who were only a few feet away but already hidden by the veil of mingled dust and sand.
Someone blundered into him in the murk. Long hair whipped across his face and he reached out, crying "Fianna! Fianna!" A woman's hand caught his, and a voice answered, but he could not hear the words.
Then, suddenly, his beast was crowded by other scaly bodies. The woman's grip had broken. Hard masculine hands clawed at him. He could make out, dimly, the features of two men, close to his.
Luhar, and Freka. ”

“ Stark asked her.
"Simply this. I will place your mind in Kynon's body. You will be Kynon, with all his power. You will be able then to keep Delgaun in check—later, you can destroy him, but not until after the battle is won, for we need the men of Valkis and Jekkara. You can keep your own body safe from him, and at the worst, if by some chance he should succeed in slaying the man he believes to be you, you will still be alive."
"And after the battle," said Stark softly. "What then, Berild?"
"We will rule together." She held his palms against hers. "You have strong hands, wild man. ”

“ This will be a bitter night enough, without rousing the men of Shun over Freka's death."
Stark listened to the distant sliding echoes from the pit, and shivered. He had so nearly finished there himself. He was glad to follow Fianna away from that place of darkness and silent death.
He stopped her in a place where a bar of moonlight came splashing through a great crack in the tunnel roof.
"Now," he said, "we will talk."
She nodded. "Yes. The time has come for that."
"There are lies everywhere," said Stark. "I am tangled up in lies. You know the truth that is behind this war of Kynon's. ”

“ The little gun in her hand made a hissing spurt of flame. Freka screamed once, and fell. He did not move again.
"The swine," Fianna said, without emotion. "Delgaun ordered him to wait, until it was sure that Kynon would not come down to talk to you. Then the story was to be that you had escaped somehow, with Berild's aid."
She stepped over the body and unlocked the iron collar with a key she took from her girdle.
Stark took her slender shoulders gently between his hands. "Are you a witch-girl, that you know all things and always come when I need you?" ”

“ They go hungry and thirsty, while the City-States along the Dryland Border hog all the water sources and grow fat. Do you know what it means to watch your children die crying for water on a long march, to come at last to the oasis and find the well sanded in by a storm, and go on again, trying to save your people and your herd? Well, I do! I was born and bred in the Drylands, and many a time I've cursed the border states with a tongue like a dry stick.
"Stark, you should know the workings of the barbarian mind as well as I do. The men of Kesh and Shun are traditional enemies. ”

“ Stark measured their supply of water and shook his head. "It'll be dry walking."
He rose and took up the skin, and Berild came beside him without a word. Her red hair hung loose over her shoulders. The rags of her silken robe had been torn away by the wind, leaving her only the loose skirt of the desert women, and her belt and collar of jewels. ”