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

should I not go to Kushat? Is it against some law, that a man may not go there in peace without being hounded all over the Norlands? And why do the men of Mekh make it their business? They have nothing to do with the city."

      Thord held his breath, watching with delighted anticipation.

      The hands of the man in armor caressed the axe. They were slender hands, smooth and sinewy—small hands, it seemed, for such a weapon.

      "We make what we will our business, Eric John Stark." He spoke with a peculiar gentleness. "I have asked you. Why were you going to Kushat?"

      "Because," Stark answered with equal restraint, "my comrade wanted to go home to die."

      "It seems a long, hard journey, just for dying." The black helm bent forward, in an attitude of thought. "Only the condemned or banished leave their cities, or their clans. Why did your comrade flee Kushat?"

      A voice spoke suddenly from out of the heap of rags that lay on the pallet in the shadows of the corner. A man's voice, deep and husky, with the harsh quaver of age or madness in it.

      "Three men beside myself have fled Kushat, over the years that matter. One died in the spring floods. One was caught in the moving ice of winter. One lived. A thief named Camar, who stole a certain talisman."

      Stark said, "My comrade was called Greshi." The leather belt weighed heavy about him, and the iron boss seemed hot against his belly. He was beginning, now, to be afraid.

      * * * * *

      The Lord Ciaran spoke, ignoring Stark. "It was the sacred talisman of Kushat. Without it, the city is like a man without a soul."

      As the Veil of Tanit was to Carthage, Stark thought, and reflected on the fate of that city after the Veil was stolen.

      "The nobles were afraid of their own people," the man in armor said. "They did not dare to tell that it was gone. But we know."

      "And," said Stark, "you will attack Kushat before the thaw, when they least expect you."

      "You have a sharp mind, stranger. Yes. But the great wall will be hard to carry, even so. If I came, bearing in my hands the talisman of Ban Cruach...."

      He did not finish, but turned instead to Thord. "When you plundered the dead man's body, what did you find?"

      "Nothing, Lord. A few coins, a knife, hardly worth the taking."

      "And you, Eric John Stark. What did you take from the body?"

      With perfect truth he answered, "Nothing."

      "Thord," said the Lord Ciaran, "search him."

      Thord came smiling up to Stark and ripped his jacket open.

      With uncanny swiftness, the Earthman moved. The edge of one broad hand took Thord under the ear, and before the man's knees had time to sag Stark had caught his arm. He turned, crouching forward, and pitched Thord headlong through the door flap.

      He straightened and turned again. His eyes held a feral glint. "The man has robbed me once," he said. "It is enough."

      He heard Thord's men coming. Three of them tried to jam through the entrance at once, and he sprang at them. He made no sound. His fists did the talking for him, and then his feet, as he kicked the stunned barbarians back upon their leader.

      "Now," he said to the Lord Ciaran, "will we talk as men?"

      The man in armor laughed, a sound of pure enjoyment. It seemed that the gaze behind the mask studied Stark's savage face, and then lifted to greet the sullen Thord who came back into the shelter, his cheeks flushed crimson with rage.

      "Go," said the Lord Ciaran. "The stranger and I will talk."

      "But Lord," he protested, glaring at Stark, "it is not safe...."

      "My dark mistress looks after my safety," said Ciaran, stroking the axe across his knees. "Go."

      Thord went.

      The man in armor was silent then, the blind mask turned to Stark, who met that eyeless gaze and was silent also. And the bundle of rags in the shadows straightened slowly and became a tall old man with rusty hair and beard, through which peered craggy juts of bone and two bright, small points of fire, as though some wicked flame burned within him.

      He shuffled over and crouched at the feet of the Lord Ciaran, watching the Earthman. And the man in armor leaned forward.

      "I will tell you something, Eric John Stark. I am a bastard, but I come of the blood of kings. My name and rank I must make with my own hands. But I will set them high, and my name will ring in the Norlands!

      "I will take Kushat. Who holds Kushat, holds Mars—and the power and the riches that lie beyond the Gates of Death!"

      "I have seen them," said the old man, and his eyes blazed. "I have seen Ban Cruach the mighty. I have seen the temples and the palaces glitter in the ice. I have seen Them, the shining ones. Oh, I have seen them, the beautiful, hideous ones!"

      He glanced sidelong at Stark, very cunning. "That is why Otar is mad, stranger. He has seen."

      A chill swept Stark. He too had seen, not with his own eyes but with the mind and memories of Ban Cruach, of a million years ago.

      Then it had been no illusion, the fantastic vision opened to him by the talisman now hidden in his belt! If this old madman had seen....

      "What beings lurk beyond the Gates of Death I do not know," said Ciaran. "But my dark mistress will test their strength—and I think my red wolves will hunt them down, once they get a smell of plunder."

      "The beautiful, terrible ones," whispered Otar. "And oh, the temples and the palaces, and the great towers of stone!"

      "Ride with me, Stark," said the Lord Ciaran abruptly. "Yield up the talisman, and be the shield at my back. I have offered no other man that honor."

      Stark asked slowly, "Why do you choose me?"

      "We are of one blood, Stark, though we be strangers."

      The Earthman's cold eyes narrowed. "What would your red wolves say to that? And what would Otar say? Look at him, already stiff with jealousy, and fear lest I answer, 'Yes'."

      "I do not think you would be afraid of either of them."

      "On the contrary," said Stark, "I am a prudent man." He paused. "There is one other thing. I will bargain with no man until I have looked into his eyes. Take off your helm, Ciaran—and then perhaps we will talk!"

      Otar's breath made a snakelike hissing between his toothless gums, and the hands of the Lord Ciaran tightened on the haft of the axe.

      "No!" he whispered. "That I can never do."

      Otar rose to his feet, and for the first time Stark felt the full strength that lay in this strange old man.

      "Would you look upon the face of destruction?" he thundered. "Do you ask for death? Do you think a thing is hidden behind a mask of steel without a reason, that you demand to see it?"

      He turned. "My Lord," he said. "By tomorrow the last of the clans will have joined us. After that, we must march. Give this Earthman to Thord, for the time that remains—and you will have the talisman."

      The blank, blind mask was unmoving, turned toward Stark, and the Earthman thought that from behind it came a faint sound that might have been a sigh.

      Then....

      "Thord!" cried the Lord Ciaran, and lifted up the axe.

      III

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      The flames leaped high from the fire in the windless gorge. Men sat around it in a great circle, the wild riders out of the mountain valleys of Mekh. They sat with the curbed and shivering eagerness of wolves around a dying