Essential Science Fiction Novels - Volume 5. Эдвард Бульвер-Литтон

of linked light mail, the silken sheathed legs, the high buskins and the curved daggers and the scimitar in his jeweled belt. And human as Kenton himself. About him was none of the charnel flavor of Klaneth nor the grotesqueness of Gigi. The full red lips beneath the carefully trimmed beard were sensual, life loving; the body was burly and muscular; the face whiter than Kenton's own. But it was sullen and stamped deep with a half-resigned, half desperate boredom that even his lively and frank curiosity about Kenton lightened little.

      In front of him was a wide slab of bloodstone. Six priests knelt upon it, worshipping something that stood within a niche just above the slab. What it was he could not tell—except that it breathed out evil. A. little larger than a man, the thing within the niche was black and formless as though made of curdling shadows. It quivered, pulsated—as though the shadows that were its substance thickened constantly about it, passed within it and were replaced swiftly by others.

      Dark was that cabin, the walls somber as dull black marble. Other shadows clung to the dark walls and clustered in the corners; shadows that seemed only to await command to deepen into substance.

      Unholy shadows—like those that clothed the thing within the niche.

      Beyond, as in the cabin of Sharane, was another chamber, and crowding at the door between were a dozen or more of the black robed, white faced priests.

      "Go to your places," Klaneth turned to them, breaking the silence. They slipped away. The black priest closed the door upon them. He touched the nearest of the kneeling priests with his foot.

      "Our Lord Nergal has had enough of worship," he said. "See—he has swallowed your prayers!"

      Kenton looked at the thing within the niche. It was no longer misty, shadowed. It stood out, clear cut. Its body was that of a man and its face was that same awesome visage of evil into which he had seen the black priest's turn on that first adventure of his upon the ship.

      The face of Nergal—Lord of the Dead!

      What had been the curdled, quivering shades enveloping the statue?

      He felt the eyes of Klaneth searching him, covertly. A trick! A trick to frighten him. He met the black priest's gaze squarely; smiled.

      The Persian laughed.

      "Hai, Klaneth," he said. "There was a bolt that fell short. Mayhap this stranger has seen such things before. Mayhap he is a sorcerer himself and can do better things. Change your play, Klaneth."

      He yawned and seated himself upon a low settle. The black priest's face grew grimmer.

      "Best be silent, Zubran," he said. "Else it may be that Nergal will change his play for you in a way to banish forever your disbelief."

      "Disbelief?" echoed the Persian. "Oh, Nergal is real enough. It is not disbelief that irks me. It is the eternal monotony. Can you do nothing new, Klaneth? Can Nergal do nothing new? Change his play for me, eh? By Ahriman —that is just what I wish he would do, if he can."

      He yawned again, ostentatiously. The black priest growled; turned to the six worshipers.

      "Go," he ordered, "and send Zachel to me."

      They filed through the outer door. The black priest dropped upon another settle, studying Kenton; the drummer squatted, also watching him; the Persian muttered to himself, playing with his dagger hilts. The door opened and into the cabin stepped a priest who held in one hand a long whip whose snaky lash, metal topped, was curled many times around his forearm. He bowed before Klaneth.

      Kenton recognized him. When he had lain on the deck close to the mast he had seen this man sitting on a high platform at the foot of that mast. Overseer of the galley slaves, the oarsmen, was Zachel, and that long lash was measured to flick the furtherest of them if they lagged.

      "Is this he whom you saw upon the deck some sleeps ago?" asked Klaneth. "He who lay there and, you say, vanished when the drab of Ishtar yonder bent over to touch him?"

      "He is the same, master," answered the overseer, coming close to Kenton and scanning him.

      "Where went he then?" asked Klaneth, more to himself than to the other. "To Sharane's cabin? But if so, why did she drive him out, her cats clawing him? And whence came that sword she waved and bade him come retake? I know that sword—"

      "He did not go into her cabin at that time, master," interrupted Zachel. "I saw her seek for him. She went back to her place alone. He had vanished."

      "And his driving forth," mused Klaneth, "that was two sleeps ago. And the ship has sailed far since then. We saw him struggling in the waves far behind us. Yet here he is upon the ship again—and with his wounds still fresh, still bleeding as though it had been but a moment gone. And how passed he the barrier? Yea—how passed he the barrier?"

      "Ah, at last you have stumbled on a real question," cried the Persian. "Let him but tell me that—and, by the Nine Hells, not long will you have me for companion, Klaneth."

      Kenton saw the drummer make a covert warning gesture to Zubran; saw the black priest's eyes narrow.

      "Ho! Ho!" laughed Gigi. "Zubran jests. Would he not find life there as tiresome as he pretends to find it with us? Is it not so, Zubran?"

      Again he made the fleet, warning sigh. And the Persian heeded it.

      "Yes, I suppose that is so," he answered grudgingly. "At any rate— am I not sworn to Nergal? Nevertheless," he muttered, "the gods gave women one art that has not grown tiresome since first they made the world."

      "They lose that art in Nergal's abode," said the black priest, grimly. "Best remember that and curb that tongue of yours lest you find yourself in a worse place than here—where at least you have your body."

      "May I speak, master?" asked Zachel; and Kenton felt threat in the glance the overseer shot at him.

      The black priest nodded.

      "I think he passed the barrier because he knows naught of our Lord," said Zachel. "Indeed—may be an enemy of our Lord. If not—why was he able to shake off the hands of your priests, vanish in the sea—and return?"

      "Enemy of Nergal!" Klaneth muttered.

      "But it does not follow that he is friend of Ishtar," put in the drummer, smoothly. "True if he were sworn to the Dark One he could not pass the barrier. But true is it also that were he sworn to Ishtar equally would that have been impossible."

      "True!" Klaneth's face cleared. "And I know that sword—Nabu's own blade."

      He was silent for a moment; thoughtful. When he spoke there was courtesy in the thick voice.

      "Stranger," he said, "if we have used you roughly, forgive us. Visitors are rare upon this craft. You—let me say—startled us out of our manners. Zachel, loose his bonds."

      The overseer bent and sullenly set Kenton free of his thongs.

      "If, as I think, you come from Nabu," went on the black priest, "I tell you that I have no quarrel with the Wise One or his people. Nor is my Master, the Lord of Death, ever at odds with the Lord of Wisdom. How could he be when one carries the keys of knowledge of this life, and the other the key that unlocks the door of the ultimate knowledge? Nay, there is no quarrel there. Are you a favored one of Nabu? Did he set you on the ship? And— why?"

      Silent was Kenton, searching desperately for some way to answer the black priest. Temporize with him as he had with Sharane, he knew he could not. Nor, he knew, was it of any use to tell him the truth as he had told her— and been driven out like a hunted rat for it. Here was danger; peril, greater than he had faced in the rosy cabin. Klaneth's voice cut in:

      "But favored of Nabu as you may be, it seems that could not save you from losing his sword, nor from the javelins of Ishtar's women. And if that is so —can it save you from my whip, my chains?"

      And as Kenton stood, still silent, wolf light flared in the dead pupils and the black priest leaped to his feet crying:

      "Answer