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

the Ship of Ishtar. The priestesses of Ishtar had claimed her. But Klaneth who had great power had resisted them, and as a compromise the Council of Priests had made her priestess of the God Bel and placed her in Bel's Bower on top of the Temple of the Seven Zones.

      "I know that Temple and the Bower of Bel," Sigurd had nodded. "And why its priestess must live there," he had whispered, looking askance at Kenton.

      This woman appeared now and then, heavily veiled, attending certain ceremonies to the God Bel, the captain went on. But she seemed to be a woman in a dream. Her memory had been taken from her—or so it was reported. Beyond that he knew nothing—except that Klaneth had doubled his reward for three of them—he pointed to Gigi, Zubran and the Persian; and had trebled it for him—he pointed to Kenton.

      When they were done with him they unloosed the remaining slaves and sent them ashore. They hailed the ship and the Nubian brought her over. They watched the captain and his men pass over the side of the galley and disappear among the trees.

      "Plenty of water and food," grumbled Gigi. "They fare far better at our hands than we would have fared at theirs."

      They hitched the captured galley to the ship; slowly pulled it out of the harbor through the rock-lipped mouth. And after they had gone a mile or so Sigurd dropped into it, did a few things with an axe, and climbing back cut it loose. Rapidly the galley filled and sank.

      "Now," cried Kenton, and took the rudder bar, steering the ship straight to where the long blue arrow pointed.

      Pointed to Emakhtila and to Sharane—

      Sharane!

      XVII

      THEY SEEK SORCERERS' ISLE

      Luck clung to them. The silver mists hung close about the ship, shrouding her so that she sailed within a circle not more than double her length. Ever the mists hid her. Kenton, sleeping little, drove the slaves at the oar to point of exhaustion.

      "There is a great storm brewing," warned Sigurd.

      "Pray Odin that it may hold back till we are well within Emakhtila," answered Kenton.

      "If we but had a horse I would sacrifice it to the All Father," said Sigurd. "Then he would hold that storm till our needs called it."

      "Speak low, lest the sea horses trample us!" warned Kenton.

      He had questioned the Viking about that interruption of his when the captain of the captured galley had said that the captured woman was Priestess of Bel's Bower.

      "She will be safe there, even from Klaneth—so long as she takes no other lover than the god," Sigurd had said.

      "No other lover than the god!" Kenton had roared, hand dropping to sword and glaring at Sigurd. "She shall have no lover but me—god or man, Sigurd! What do you mean?"

      "Take hand from sword. Wolf," Sigurd had replied. "I meant not to offend you. Only—gods are gods! And there was something in that captain's talk about your woman walking in dream, memory withdrawn from her—was there not? If that be so—blood-brother—you are in those memories she has lost!"

      Kenton winced.

      "Nergal once tried to part a man and a woman who loved," he said, "even as Sharane and I. He could not. I do not think Nergal's priest can succeed where his master failed."

      "Not well reasoned, Wolf." It was Zubran who had come quietly upon them. "The gods are strong. Therefore they have no reason for subtlety or cunning. They smite—and all is done. It is not artistic, I admit—but it is unanswerable. And man, who has not the strength of the gods, must resort to cunning and subtlety. That is why man will do worse things than the gods. Out of his weakness he is forced to it. The gods should not be blamed —except for making man weaker than they. And therefore Klaneth is more to be feared by you than Nergal, his master."

      "He cannot drive me out of Sharane's heart!" Kenton cried.

      The Viking bent his head down to the compass.

      "You may be right," he muttered. "Zubran may be right. All I know is that while your woman is faithful to Bel, no man may harm her!"

      Vague as he might be on that one point, the Viking was direct and full of meat upon others. The Norseman had been observant while slave to the priests of Nergal. He knew the city and the Temple of the Seven Zones intimately. Best of all he knew a way of entering Emakhtila by another road than that of its harbor.

      This was indeed all important, since it was not within the bounds of possibility that they could enter that harbor without instant recognition.

      "Look, comrades," Sigurd scratched with point of sword a rude map on the planks of the deck. "Here lies the city. It is at the end of a fjord. The mountains rise on each side of it and stretch in two long spits far out to sea. But here"—he pointed to a spot in the coast line close to the crotch where the left hand mountain barrier shot out from the coast— "is a bay with a narrow entrance from the sea. It is used by the priests of Nergal for a certain secret sacrifice. Between it and the city a hidden way runs through the hills. That path brings you out to the great temple. I have traveled the hidden way and have stood on the shores of that bay. I went there with other slaves, bearing priests in litters and things for the sacrifice. While it would take two good sleeps for a ship to make the journey from Emakhtila to this place, it is by the hidden way only half so far as a strong man could walk in my own land between the dawn and noon of a winter day. Also there are many places there where the ship can be hidden. Few galleys pass by and no one lives near—which is why the priests of Nergal picked it.

      "Also I know well the Temple of the Seven Zones—since long it was my home," went on Sigurd. "Its height is thirty times the ship's mast."

      Kenton swiftly estimated. That would make the temple six hundred feet —a respectable height indeed.

      "Its core," said the Viking, "is made up of the sanctuaries of the gods and the goddess Ishtar, one upon each other. Around this core are the quarters of the priests and priestesses and lesser shrines. These secret sanctuaries are seven, the last being the house of Bel. From Bel's House a stairway leads up into his Bower. At the base of the temple is a vast court with altars and other shrines where the people come to worship. Its entrances are strongly guarded. Even we four could not enter—there!

      "But around the temple, which is shaped thus"—he scratched the outline of a truncated cone—"a great stone stairway runs thus" —he drew a spiral from base to top of cone. "At intervals, along that stairway, are sentinels. There is a garrison where it begins. Is this all clear?"

      "What is clear," grunted Gigi, "is that we would need an army to take it!"

      "Not so," the Viking answered. "Remember how we took the galley— although they outnumbered us? We will row the ship into that secret harbor. If priests are there we must do what we can—slay or flee. But if the Norns decree that no priests be there, we will hide the ship and leave the slaves in care of the black-skin. Then the four of us, dressed as seamen in the clothes and the long cloaks we took from the galley, will take the hidden way and go into the city.

      "For as to that stairway—I have another plan. It is high walled —up to a man's chest. If we can pass without arousing the guards at its base, we can creep up under shadow of that wall, slaying the sentinels as we go, until we reach the Bower of Bel and entering, bear Sharane away.

      "But not in fair weather could we do this," he ended. "There must be darkness or storm that they see us not from the streets. And that is why I pray to Odin, that this brewing tempest may not boil until we have reached the city and looked upon that stairway. For in that storm that is surely coming we could do as I have said and swiftly."

      "But in all this I see no chance of slaying Klaneth," growled Zubran. "We creep in, we creep up, we creep out again with Sharane—if we can. And that is all. By Ormuzd, my knees are too tender for creeping! Also my scimitar itches to scratch itself on the black priest's hide."

      "No safety while Klaneth