The Warrior of World's End, page 14
No wonder Master called this-Elphod one of the most dangerous things in YamaYamaLand, thought Ganelon.
The First Elphod was fairly quivering with supressed rage, spluttering feebly but viciously. The Airmasters of his court lay groveling on their bellies, scarcely daring to breathe the same air. The existence in their halls of so irreverent a blasphemer, they believed, tainted and polluted everything it touched. Ganelon could read their panic, and grim, contemptuous way it amused him.
Or would have amused him had the situation not been quite so desperate.
Finally, the spluttering voice managed to find the power of articulate speech again.
“S-such obscenities befoul the very air sanctified by our blessed presence,” hissed the man dressed entirely in gold. Through the eye-slits of his mask, the weak and watery eyes glared with maniacal rage.
“What punishment does Your Holiness decree for such audacious and incredible blasphemy?” whispered the leader of the guards with trembling lips.
The eyes brooded behind the mask, judiciously considering and rejecting a variety of curious and intricate torments. Then they flashed with the dreadful glitter of cold, gloating cruelties.
“Let them be dismembered slowly under the Whirling Knives, and their tissues reduced in the protein tanks to
provide nutriment for our table,” whispered the man entirely clothed in gold.
Ganelon’s stomach muscles tightened in revulsion at the thought. But there was nothing he could do to prevent the doom levied against them. For even he could not break the adamantine chains that bound his wrists!
25. THE THING THAT GLOWED IN THE DARK
The golden statuelike figure stirred fretfully, or, rather, tried to stir. The glittering mail was obviously so heavy that it was all the old man could do merely to breathe under the crushing weight of the soft metal.
“We are offended at such iniquities, such verbal obscenities, uttered in our presence,” the quavering voice complained petulantly. “Gitardsmen: take these vile atheists away and dispose of their tissues as we have instructed. Now we shall withdraw the ineffable bliss and benison of our sacred person from this befouled and tainted place … the priests are instructed to cleanse and purify it with prayer and suffumigations for seven days. Only then shall we again enrich and bless this assemblage by resuming the sacred throne.”
As the feeble voice ceased speaking, lights began to play upon the motionless figure from several unseen sources. The intensity of the rays increased rapidly; soon the golden figure blazed with blinding dazzle. Every square inch of the figure was covered like an idol with pure gold, highly polished, reflective as a mirror. The dazzling radiance became intolerable, sunlike. Even Ganelon Silvermane was forced to squeeze his eyes shut against such incandescence.
A moment later the blaze of golden glory dimmed, faded, and was gone.
They opened their eyes cautiously, blinking to dispel the vibrant blue afterimages. And saw to their astonishment that the huge throne was now completely empty. The figure of the Elphod had vanished; it was as if he had melted into vapor and dispersed into thin air. And yet he could hardly move a finger under the weight of all that gold; how, then, had he managed to leave the throne atop the tall, thick pedestal?
It was uncanny; it was just a little frightening. Ganelon could not understand it. And, as for the girl knight at his side, she was wide-eyed with amazement.
“By my halidom,” swore Xarda, ‘but how did he manage to get away without our seeing him? Was it a real miracle?”
“Tush!” the Illusionist snorted. “Mere sleight-of-hand, my child. The sort of thing we learned in the first semestd^ of Stage Trickery 107, back at school! The light blinded us and made us all look away while the throne sank into the hollow pedestal on an hydraulic lift. Then waiting slaves carried him out of the chair and let it reascend to the top of the pedestal quite empty, in tirtie for us to see. A matter of clever timing, nothing more!”
The assemblage rose and dispersed; the guards led them away.
The interview was over.
They were given food and water before being returned to their cell. The food was a lukewarm, greasy stew composed of a few unappetizing lumps of some unidentifiable meat, floating in a dish half filled with tasteless gravy. The water, however, was cold and fresh.
Since their hands were still bound behind them, the guards had to spoon the slop into their mouths. Ganelon ate the congealing mess indifferently; it was well past the middle of the day and he was hungry. In view of their sentence, however, he did have a few second thoughts about those lumps of meat. He rather queasily hoped they were not portions of one of yesterday’s convicted heretics, reduced in the protein vats!
That also caused him to reflect on the peculiar behavior of the Sky Islanders. Why would they feed a man they were about to slice up with Whirling Knives? The illogic
of lunchtime just before execution so baffled and intrigued him that, dodging the next-to-last spoonful, he asked the guard about it.
The fellow shrugged. “The hour is not auspicious for execution of His Holiness’ instructions concerning you,” the fellow said callously. “It is now the Hour of the Toad—a vile, ill-omened part of the day; and the Hour of the Worm, which follows next, is little better. The Augurs report that not until the hour after sundown will the time be ripe for the dissolution of your tissues.”
Xarda gagged just then on the lump of tissue she had been chewing. Obviously the notion that had earlier occurred to Ganelon had just occurred to her. Their meal finished, they were led back to their cell. It was the same stone-walled chamber in which they had awakened after their recovery from the sleep-inducing vapor which had overcome them at the portal to the Death Machine.
Xarda looked pale and queasy, and just a trifle green, about the gills. She cast a suffering glance at Silvermane.
“You would have to ask that q-question about the dissolution of our tissues just then, wouldn’t you?” she asked in a feeble little voice.
“Oh tut! Cheer up, my lass!” advised the Illusionist in a cheery tone. “At least we have all afternoon to digest that greasy slop they pushed in our faces. We now know that the jolly old Whirling Knives have been postponed until the hour after sundown. That’s good news, eh? Goodness knows what might occur between now and then!”
At the hearty ring in his joking words, the girl steeled herself. Her lips tightened and the muscles along her jaw bunched purposefully. Chivalry demanded that she put a good face on things and stiffen her upper lip, ready for come-what-may. If the old magician could face the imminent dissolution of his tissues with equanimity, so, by Galendil, could she!
“That’s the spirit, girl!” he chirped. “Never say die!”
The guards opened the cell door and thrust them inside hurriedly, sliding the stone slab back into place. It sealed the portal with a heavy grating thump, and they were alone.
The Illusionist went over to one of the stone benches and sat down. Although he grumbled a bit at the difficulties of sitting comfortably with his hands manacled behind his back, he seemed to be actually enjoying their predicament in some curious way. Ganelon could not help noticing that his spirits seemed to have risen ever since their capture; he had tossed disparaging remarks at the Holy Elphod with a flippant zest which Ganelon thought remarkable. What the young giant did not realize was that to the Illusionist, who had lived many centuries in conditions of comfort and even luxury, genuine danger and peril broke the monotony deliciously, and he found himself enjoying the hazardous confrontation with heady gusto.
But something else was puzzling Silvermane.
“Master,” he said, “I didn’t know you had been a schoolmate of the Elphod’s; you never mentioned anything about having known him before….”
“Quite right, and for the very good reason that I have never before laid eyes on the fellow,” the Illusionist replied. “The Horxites maintain excellently detailed and thoroughly researched personal dossiers on their major heretics. This data, plus a bit of scrying in my wizard’s crystal, produced quite a few scurrilous items of interest from old Vlydabec’s unsavory past. Oh, I studied at Nem-bosch once; but that was long before the old fool was even born. I am older than you think me, boy!”
Xarda was working grimly on her manacles, but gave up with a gusty sigh. “If only I could free my hands! And find my sword!” she said wistfully.
“Calm yourself, my child,” said the Illusionist.
She uttered a most unladylike snort of derision. “Calm myself, is it? How can you just sit there, when in a few hours they will be reducing our tissues to bubbling slime in the protein tanks? Ugh!” She shivered. “The very thought congeals my marrow!”
“No doubt. But, as for myself, I am going to enjoy a brief nap. It has been a fairly exciting day, all things considered. And I advise you to do the same: conserve your strength and energy for a later moment, when we shall need everything that is within us.” With that the Illusionist stretched out on the bench, kicked and wriggled until he was laying on his side, and composed himself for slumber. Ganelon obediently did the same; after a while, Xarda gave up struggling against her manacles and lay down, too, wom out from the hectic furor of the day.
Quite a while later Ganelon came suddenly awake, nerves tingling with alarm. His phloigms, more sensitive than those of the girl, who still lay sound asleep, warned him of the presence of a dangerous supernatural creature.
He craned his neck in order to look around—and froze in shock!
A strange, towering figure stood in the cell. It glowed in the dark with an eerie red light, and it was in nowise human. Ganelon caught only a blurred, swift glimpse of the thing: only enough to see that it had clumsy, monstrous limbs instead of human arms or hands and that it was clad in strange, uncouth armor, red as blood.
It was bending over the Illusionist, who still slept on, oblivious to the menacing apparition!
Then Ganelon was on his feet somehow, howling and roaring, and charging to his master’s defense. Although what he could do to fight the monster with his hands behind him, he did not know.
26. TO THE DEATH MACHINE
There was no way to battle the strange monster who glowed in the dark and who had appeared among them like an apparition, so Ganelon butted it in the pit of the stomach with his head. That is, he butted it in the place where its stomach would be, if it had possessed a stomach, which it happened not to.
The blow, however, did not seem to cause the armored monster any appreciable amount of discomfort. It did, however,, rather daze the giant himself for a few wobbly moments. And it also managed to awaken the dormant headache he had from the aftereffects of breathing the sleep vapor.
He groaned and backed off and tried to give it a kick with his booted foot.
“Get away from my master, you hideous monster!” he growled.
Why you cuss at poor Fryx so? asked Fryx in a hurt tone of voice (or thought, rather, since the Gyraphont communicated by telepathy). Why you bump head on thorax of Fryx? the creature continued in the same vein. You crazy boy, mebee? Fryx no like you no more; no bring you cocoa in bed no more, crazy boyf kick Fryx with foot! You bad boy.
“Fryx? Fryx!” Silvermane mumbled numbly. He blinked his bleary gaze clear and took a closer look at the hulking thing. Now, of course, he recognized the chitinous red lob-ster-thing with its multiple limbs and pincers. He ought to have remembered that Fryx glowed in the dark; it was just something that Gyraphonts did.
“Fryx! What are you doing here, Fryx?” he asked, bewildered.
Master call, Fryx come, is all. Crazy bad boy!
“But—why are you here? I mean—”
“Because I called him, of course. Simpleton!” sniffed the Illusionist, sitting up and turning about so that Fryx could snip through his manacles with those huge lobsterlike pincers of his. Being a supernatural entity, Fryx could apply superhuman strength to the cutting of even adamantine chains.
“Called him? But I thought you were asleep!”
“I let you think that to spare you the pangs of perhaps false hope,” said the Illusionist, “in case I failed, that is. I have never before had occasion to try to mentally summon Fryx to my side over such a very great distance. I am not a natural telepath, although of course I have had to learn the art for my work. But one thing helped me, and that was that Fryx was already attuned to my wavelength and alert and ready for summons. I arranged that before we left Nerelon.”
Ganelon shook his head as if to get his brains working again. Then he turned about so that Fryx could snip away his chains, having finished freeing the wrists of the Illusionist. ^
Xarda sat backed against the wall, staring at them, eyes huge and fearful. She was not quite certain the frightening red monster with the thirteen eyes was really friendly, being able to hear only one side of the exchange, since
Fryx was not broadcasting to her, having not yet noticed she was also in the room.
“It’s all right, my dear; Fryx is a servant of mine, a bit of a pet, and quite an old friend,” the Illusionist said cheerily.
Who pretty lady? Fryx inquired, bending six or seven eyes upon her with curiosity. Mebbe she you girl frien hey, crazy boy? the creature asked maliciously. Ganelon blinked uncomprehendingly; Xarda flushed crimson and bit her lip.
A few moments later Fryx had removed the chains from all three of them and they stood, gratefully rubbing their aching wrists.
“Things look quite a bit brighter now than they did before we all had our little nap.” The Illusionist grinned. “It still lacks almost an hour of our appointment with the Whirling Knives; I’m afraid, however, that the jolly old protein tanks are going to be kept waiting this night. Fryx, I want you to take me to the spire that stands at the exact center of Sky Island, leave me there, and come back for Ganelon and this young lady; do you understand me?”
Hokay said Fryx amicably. The magician took hold of the Gyraphont’s upper forefront limb and both of them promptly vanished. Xarda turned green and gulped. Never before had the Chivalric Code of Jemmerdy been so severely taxed!
Guessing the general tenor of her thoughts, Ganelon said comfortingly, “It’s not unpleasant to go between the dimensions, Xarda. I’ve done it myself with Fryx a couple of times.”
“Oh, I believe you!” she said, with a slight shudder. “It’s just that I shall never get accustomed to the way you two travel about. That flying bronze bird-thing that argues with the Magister all the time, well, he was bad enough—”
“She,” corrected Ganelon.
“All right, she was bad enough. I had just about got used to flying in a talkative metal thing, when you decide to finish off the trip on the back of a black, rubbery, obscene bat-monster with a thirty-foot wingspread. And now you expect me to pop out of existence somehow in the clutches of a Gyraphont! Oh, none of my sister-knights will ever believe this when I get back to Jemmerdy,” she said. “// I get back to Jemmerdy, that is,” she added by way of an afterthought.
Fryx melted out of thin air at Ganelon’s side, and did it so suddenly that Xarda gasped and jumped an inch in the air, then hated herself for doing so.
You ready! No kick old Fryx, now!
“No, of course I won’t, Fryx. Fryx, I’m awfully sorry. I thought you were a—” Ganelon got only partly through his apologies when Fryx took him gently by the arm and did whatever it is that Gyraphonts do in order to take a shortcut across space by dodging between the dimensions. Ganelon vanished in mid-explanation. And then it was Xarda’s turn.
Night had fallen; the stars flashed and twinkled in the heavens above Sky Island, appreciably bigger and more brilliant than when seen from the planet’s surface.
The blue metal spire of the Death Machine gleamed with oily highlights in the glimmering of the Falling Moon. The harsh stench of ozone was sharp as iodine. Sparks crackled faintly from the brass ball atop the blue shaft, and they could faintly hear the drone and throb of engines from within the structure.
“If we can manage to wreck this installation before our escape is discovered, we will destroy the ability of the Airmasters to levy tribute from Karjixia and its neighboring realms,” said the Illusionist. “Somehow or other this machine controls the movements of the Death Zone.”
“But if I try to break open the vault-door, won’t the sleep vapor render us unconscious again?” asked Ganelon.
Tlie magician nodded affably. “Yes, but we won’t break in and trip the gas-releasing mechanism.” The veiled magician turned to the lobster-creature. “Fryx, I want you to enter the interior of this structure by your shortcut method and open the vault-door from inside. Do you think you can do that?”
The Gyraphont blinked eight or nine eyes thoughtfully. Hokay. He promptly vanished and the three adventurers retreated some distance in order to get beyond the range of the sleep-inducing gas, should Fryx perchance trip the mechanism by mistake. They stood in the starlight waiting for the door to open.
“I wonder how these fanatics got their conqueror-complex in the first place,” murmured Xarda, nervously hefting her sword. Fryx had located and rescued their weapons in between trips. “I thought they were just a dissident cult….”
“They started off that way,” said the Illusionist. “They fled to Sky Island to avoid Horxite persecution, and to worship in the way they pleased. Nothing wrong with that at all, commendable, in fact. But before long they began to change; fanatics are always vulnerable to the sin of overweening pride, you know. The I-am-holier-than-thou attti-tude is dangerous and corrupting. Living here in the sky they were closer to the Gods than their earthbound brethren, and soon started thinking themselves naturally superior to the dwellers beneath. Living in the heavens like Gods, it was not long before they began believing they were more like the Gods than those who lived below on Old Earth. The tribute they exact from the poor Tigermen is psychologically the same thing as exacting worship from an inferior species, I would say. Unless we stop them now, they will subjugate Karjixia; then Phynx and Yombok and Quay, and Ixland and the Horxites, and half the countries around. A religious empire—a theocracy—run by a fanatical old madman who regards other men as vile infidels, fit only to serve his own holiness as groveling slaves. Not a pretty picture of the future, is it?”
