Distant Planet: SF Boxed Set (Illustrated Edition). Leigh Brackett

He hesitated, squinting. He rubbed his bulldog jaw. "Except those that died at—Falga."

      Faolan stood there a moment. Then he rapped his empty cup.

      "More wine, bard. More wine."

      He turned to the battle again.

      "Oh, gods, if I could see it, if I could only see it!"

      Below, a ringing crash. A silence. A shouting, a pouring of noise.

      "The Gate!" Faolan was stricken with fear. "We've lost! My sword!"

      "Stay, Faolan!" Romna laughed. Then he sighed. It was a sigh that did not believe. "In the name of ten thousand mighty gods. Would that I were blind now, or could see better."

      Faolan's hand caught, held him. "What is it? Tell!"

      "Clev! And Tlan! And Conan! And Blucc! And Mannt! Standing in the gate, like wine visions! Swords in their hands!"

      Faolan's hand relaxed, then tightened. "Speak their names again, and speak them slowly. And tell the truth." His skin shivered like that of a nervous animal. "You said—Clev? Mannt? Blucc?"

      "And Tlan! And Conan! Back from Falga. They've opened the Gate and the battle's won. It's over, Faolan. Crom Dhu will sleep tonight."

      Faolan let him go. A sob broke from his lips. "I will get drunk. Drunker than ever in my life. Gloriously drunk. Gods, but if I could have seen it. Been in it. Tell me again of it, Romna...."

      * * * * *

      Faolan sat in the great hall, on his carved high-seat, waiting.

      The pad of sandals on stone, outside, the jangle of chains.

      A door flung wide, red fog sluiced in, and in the sluice, people walking. Faolan started up. "Clev? Mannt? Aesur!"

      Starke came forward into the firelight. He pressed his right hand to the open mouth of the wound on his thigh. "No, Faolan. Myself and two others."

      "Beudag?"

      "Yes." And Beudag came wearily to him.

      Faolan stared. "Who's the other? It walks light. It's a woman."

      Starke nodded. "Rann."

      Faolan rose carefully from his seat. He thought the name over. He took a short sword from a place beside the high seat. He stepped down. He walked toward Starke. "You brought Rann alive to me?"

      Starke pulled the chain that bound Rann. She ran forward in little steps, her white face down, her eyes slitted with animal fury.

      "Faolan's blind," said Starke. "I let you live for one damned good reason, Rann. Okay, go ahead."

      Faolan stopped walking, curious. He waited.

      Rann did nothing.

      Starke took her hand and wrenched it behind her back. "I said 'go ahead.' Maybe you didn't hear me."

      "I will," she gasped, in pain.

      Starke released her. "Tell me what happens, Faolan."

      Rann gazed steadily at Faolan's tall figure there in the light.

      Faolan suddenly threw his hands to his eyes and choked.

      Beudag cried out, seized his arm.

      "I can see!" Faolan staggered, as if jolted. "I can see!" First he shouted it, then he whispered it. "I can see."

      Starke's eyes blurred. He whispered to Rann, tightly. "Make him see it, Rann or you die now. Make him see it!" to Faolan. "What do you see?"

      Faolan was bewildered, he swayed. He put out his hands to shape the vision. "I—I see Crom Dhu. It's a good sight. I see the ships of Rann. Sinking!" He laughed a broken laugh. "I—see the fight beyond the gate!"

      Silence swam in the room, over their heads.

      Faolan's voice went alone, and hypnotized, into that silence.

      He put out his big fists, shook them, opened them. "I see Mannt, and Aesur and Clev! Fighting as they always fought. I see Conan as he was. I see Beudag wielding steel again, on the shore! I see the enemy killed! I see men pouring out of the sea with brown skins and dark hair. Men I knew a long darkness ago. Men that roved the sea with me. I see Rann captured!" He began to sob with it, his lungs filling and releasing it, sucking in on it, blowing it out. Tears ran down from his vacant, blazing eyes. "I see Crom Dhu as it was and is and shall be! I see, I see, I see!"

      Starke felt the chill on the back of his neck.

      "I see Rann captured and held, and her men dead around her on the land before the Gate. I see the Gate thrown open—" Faolan halted. He looked at Starke. "Where are Clev and Mannt? Where is Blucc and Aesur?"

      Starke let the fires burn on the hearths a long moment. Then he replied.

      "They went back into the sea, Faolan."

      Faolan's fingers fell emptily. "Yes," he said, heavily. "They had to go back, didn't they? They couldn't stay, could they? Not even for one night of food on the table, and wine in the mouth, and women in the deep warm furs before the hearth. Not even for one toast." He turned. "A drink, Romna. A drink for everyone."

      Romna gave him a full cup. He dropped it, fell down to his knees, clawed at his breasts. "My heart!"

      "Rann, you sea-devil!"

      Starke held her instantly by the throat. He put pressure on the small raging pulses on either side of her snow-white neck. "Let him go, Rann!" More pressure. "Let him go!" Faolan grunted. Starke held her until her white face was dirty and strange with death.

      It seemed like an hour later when he released her. She fell softly and did not move. She wouldn't move again.

      Starke turned slowly to look at Faolan.

      "You saw, didn't you, Faolan?" he said.

      Faolan nodded blindly, weakly. He roused himself from the floor, groping. "I saw. For a moment, I saw everything. And Gods! but it made good seeing! Here, Hugh-Starke-Called-Conan, give this other side of me something to lean on."

      * * * * *

      Beudag and Starke climbed the mountain above Falga the next day. Starke went ahead a little way, and with his coming the flame birds scattered, glittering away.

      He dug the shallow grave and did what had to be done with the body he found there, and then when the grave was covered with thick grey stones he went back for Beudag. They stood together over it. He had never expected to stand over a part of himself, but here he was, and Beudag's hand gripped his.

      He looked suddenly a million years old standing there. He thought of Earth and the Belt and Jupiter, of the joy streets in the Jekkara Low Canals of Mars. He thought of space and the ships going through it, and himself inside them. He thought of the million credits he had taken in that last job. He laughed ironically.

      "Tomorrow, I'll have the sea creatures hunt for a little metal box full of credits." He nodded solemnly at the grave. "He wanted that. Or at least he thought. He killed himself getting it. So if the sea people find it, I'll send it up here to the mountain and bury it down under the rocks in his fingers. I guess that's the best place."

      Beudag drew him away. They walked down the mountain toward Falga's harbor where a ship waited them. Walking, Starke lifted his face. Beudag was with him, and the sails of the ship were rising to take the wind, and the Red Sea waited for them to travel it. What lay on its far side was something for Beudag and Faolan-of-the-Ships and Romna and Hugh-Starke-Called-Conan to discover. He felt damned good about it. He walked on steadily, holding Beudag near.

      And on the mountain, as the ship sailed, the flame birds soared down fitfully and frustratedly to beat at the stone mound; ceased, and mourning shrilly, flew away.