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

we came to a city in the land of the Egyptians. It was a very great city and full of temples to all the gods in the world—except our gods.

      "It irked us that among all these temples Odin All Father had none. It irked us, and we grew wroth. So one night when we had drunk over-deep of the Egyptian wine six of us set forth to take a temple, cast out its god and give it to Odin for a home.

      "We came to a temple and entered. It was a dark temple and full of black robes like these on board the ship. When we told them what we meant to do, they buzzed like bees and rushed us like a wolf-pack. Many then we slew, shouting. And we would have won that temple for Odin, the six of us fighting in a ring, but—a horn blew!"

      "Summoning too many for you?" asked Kenton.

      "Not at all, blood brother," said Sigurd. "It was a warlock horn. A horn of sleep. It blew sleep through us as the storm wind blows the spray through a sail. It turned our bones to water, and our red swords dropped from hands that could not longer feel their hilts. And down we all dropped, sodden with sleep, among the slain.

      "When we awoke we were in a temple. We thought it the same temple, for it was as dark and the same black-robed priests filled it. We were in chains, and they whipped us and made us slaves. Then we found we were no longer in the land of the Egyptians, but in a city named Emakhtila, on an isle of warlocks set in a sea of what I think a warlock world. Long I slaved for the black robes, I and my comrades, till they dragged me to this ship that had dropped anchor in Emakhtila harbor. And here ever since I have bent over my oar, watching their wizardries and fighting to keep my soul from being sucked from me."

      "A horn that poured out sleep!" said Kenton, puzzled. "But that I do not understand, Sigurd."

      "You will, comrade," Sigurd said grimly. "Soon enough you will. Zachel plays it well—listen—it begins."

      From behind them a deep, droning, mellow horn note sounded. Low pitched, vibrant, continuous, it crept into the ears, and seemed to pour through them along every nerve, touching them, caressing them with the soft fingers of the very soul of poppied sleep.

      The note droned on, dripping sleep.

      The Viking's eyes were fierce and strained with struggle against slumber. Slowly, slowly the lids closed over them.

      His hands relaxed, the fingers opened, his body swayed, his head dropped upon his chest. He slumped down upon the bench.

      The note droned on.

      Fight as hard as Kenton might, he could not thrust away the soft, clinging slumber that pressed inexorably in on him from every side. A numbness crept through his body. Sleep, sleep—swarms of infinite particles of sleep were drifting through him, drifting with his blood through every vein, along every nerve, clogging his brain.

      Lower and lower dropped his own lids.

      And suddenly he could no longer fight. Chains rattling, down against Sigurd he fell...

      Something deep within Kenton whispered to him to awaken; something reached down into the abysses of his charmed slumber and drew to its surface his consciousness. Slowly his heavy lids began to rise—then stopped, obeying some subtle warning. He looked out through narrowest slits. The chains that bound his wrists to the riveted manacles of the oar were long. He had moved in his sleep and now lay with head on arm stretched along the back of the low bench. He faced the ivory deck.

      There, at its edge, looking down upon him was Sharane. Veils of palest blue, through which the hands of long dead Assyrian maids had woven golden lotuses, draped her breast, coiled round her slender waist, and fell to the delicate, sandaled feet. Her black-haired maiden Satalu beside her, she leaned over, scanning him.

      "Mistress," he heard Satalu say, "he cannot be man of Nergal, since Nergal's men have chained him there."

      "No" mused Sharane. "No—in that I was wrong. And had he been of Nergal, never could he have crossed the barrier. Nor would Klaneth have taunted me—as he did—"

      "He is very handsome and young," sighed Satalu—and strong. He fought the priests like a lion lord."

      "Even a cornered rat will fight," answered Sharane, scornful. "He let himself be led to his chains like a whipped dog. And he lied to me! He came to me in borrowed plumes, bearing a sword he could not use!"

      "Oh," cried Sharane—and half of that cry was a sob—"oh, Satalu, I am ashamed! Liar and coward and slave—still he stirs something in my heart that never yet stirred for man. Oh, I am ashamed —I am ashamed, Satalu!"

      "Lady Sharane, do not weep!" Satalu caught the fluttering hands. "He may be none of these. How do you know? Perhaps he did speak the truth. How know we what has happened in that world of ours so long lost to us? And he is very handsome—and young!"

      "At least," said Sharane and bitterly, "he is a slave."

      "Sh-h!" warned Satalu. "Zachel comes."

      They turned; walked toward Sharane's cabin out of Kenton's vision.

      The wakening whistle shrilled. There was a stir among the slaves, and Kenton groaned, raised himself, rubbed eyes, and gripped the oar.

      Exultation was in his heart. There could be no mistaking Sharane's words. He held her. By a slender thread, it might be; but still—he held her. And if he were not a slave—when slave he ceased to be—what then? By no slender thread then would he hold her. He laughed—but softly, lest Zachel hear. Sigurd looked at him curiously.

      "The sleep horn must have brought you gay dream," he murmured.

      "Gay, indeed, Sigurd," he answered. "The kind of dream that will thin our chains until we can snap them."

      "Odin send more dreams like it," grunted the Norseman.

      IX

      THE BARGAINING OF SHARANE

      When Zachel blew the horn again Kenton had no need of it to send him to sleep. The sharp eyes of the overseer had seen through Sigurd's self-sacrificing stratagem, and he had watched Kenton continually, lashing him when he faltered or let the whole burden of the oar fall upon the Norseman. His hands were blistered, every bone and muscle ached, and his mind lay dulled in his weary body. And thus it was between the next five sleeps.

      Once he roused himself enough to ask Sigurd a question that had been going round and round in his brain. Half the rowers in the pit were behind the line that separated black deck from ivory—that line which neither Klaneth and his crew nor Sharane and her women could cross. Yet Zachel roamed at will from one end of that pit to the other; other priests, too, for he had seen them. And although he had not seen Klaneth or Gigi or the Persian there, he did not doubt that they could come and go if they so wished. Why, then, did not the black robes swarm up the farther side and overwhelm the rosy cabin? Why did not Sharane and her women drop into the pit and lay siege to the ebon cabin? Why did they not launch their javelins, their arrows, over the pit of the rowers into the wolfpack of the black priest?

      It was a warlock ship, the Viking had repeated, and the spell upon it no simple one. The slave who had died had told him that he had been on the ship since the gods had launched her, and that the same unseen, mysterious barrier shut off the side of the rowers that rimmed Sharane's deck. Nor could javelin or arrow or other missile other than those hurled by god and goddess penetrate it.

      Humanly, each opposing camp was helpless against the other. There were other laws, too, the slave had told Sigurd. Neither Sharane nor Klaneth could leave the ship when it hove to in harbor. Sharane's women could. The black priest's men, yes—but not for long. Soon they must return. The ship drew them back. What would happen to them if they did not return? The slave had not known, had said that such thing was impossible, the ship would draw them back.

      Kenton pondered over all this as with aching back he pushed and pulled at the oar. Decidedly these were practical, efficient deities who had doomed the ship overlooking no detail, he thought, half amused.

      Well, they had created the game, and