Elak of Atlantis (25 page)

Faintly a sound came to the archer’s ears—the drumming of hoofs. Were the raiders returning? One hand gripped the bow that lay beside him; weakly he strove to fit an arrow to the string.

Two horses cantered into view—a great gray charger and a dun mare. On the latter rode a tall, huge-muscled black man, his gargoylish face worried and anxious.

The gray’s rider seemed small beside the Nubian,
but his strong frame was unwearied by hours in the saddle. Under yellow, tousled hair was a hard young face, bronzed and eagle eyed. He saw the shambles beneath the oak, reined in his steed.

“By Shaitan!” he snapped. “What devil’s work is this!”

The dying man’s fingers let the bow fall.

“Prince Raynor—water!” he gasped.

Raynor leaped to the ground, snatched a goatskin, and held it to the archer’s lips.

“What’s happened?” he asked presently. “Where’s Delphia?”

“They—they took her.”

“Who?”

“A band of warriors took us by surprise. We were ambushed. We fought, but—they were many. I saw them ride south with Delphia.”

The archer all of a sudden looked oddly astonished. His hand reached out and gripped the bow that lay beside him.

“Death comes,” he whispered, and a shudder racked him. His jaw fell; he lay dead.

Raynor stood up, a hard, cold anger in his eyes. He glanced up at the Nubian, who had not dismounted.

“We also ride south,” he said shortly. “It was a pity we fell behind, Eblik.”

“I don’t think so,” Eblik observed. “It was an act of providence that your horse should go lame yesterday. Had we been trapped with the others, we’d have died also.”

Raynor fingered his sword-hilt. “Perhaps not. At any rate, we’ll have our chance to cross blades with these marauding dogs.”

“So? I think—”

“Obey!” Raynor snapped, and vaulted into the saddle. He set spurs to the horse’s flanks, galloped past the heap of bodies beneath the oak. “Here’s a trail. And it leads south.”

Grunting his disapproval, the Nubian followed.

“You may have been Prince of Sardopolis,” he muttered, “but Sardopolis has fallen.”

That was true. They were many days’ journey from the kingdom where Raynor had been born, and which was no longer a home for him. Three people had fled from
doomed Sardopolis—Raynor, his servant Eblik, and the girl Delphia—and in their flight they had been joined by a few other refugees.

And now the last of the latter had been slain, here in unknown country near the Sea of Shadows that lay like a shining sapphire in Imperial Gobi. When Raynor’s horse and gone lame the day before, he and Eblik had fallen behind for an hour that stretched into a far longer period—and now the archers were slain and Delphia herself was a captive.

The two rode swiftly; yet when night fell they were still within the great forest that had loomed above them for days. Raynor paused in a little clearing.

“We’ll wait here till moonrise,” he said. “It’s black as the pit now.”

Dismounting, the prince stretched weary muscles. Eblik followed his example. There was a brook nearby, and he found water for the horses. That done, he squatted on his haunches, a grim black figure in the darkness.

“The stars are out,” he said at last, in a muffled tone.

Raynor, his back against a tree-trunk, glanced up. “So they are. But it’s no moonrise yet.”

The Nubian went on as though he had not heard. “There are strange stars. I’ve never seen them look thus before.”

“Eh?” The young prince stared. Against the jet curtain of night the stars glittered frostily, infinitely far away. “They look the same as always, Eblik.”

But—did they? A little chill crept down Raynor’s spine. Something cold and indefinably horrible seemed to reach down from the vast abyss of the sky—a breath of the unknown that brooded over this primeval wilderness.

The same stars—yes! But why, in this strange land, were the stars dreadful?

“You’re a fool, Eblik,” Raynor said shortly. “See to the horses.”

The Nubian shivered and stood up.

“I wish we had never come into this black land,” he murmured, in an oddly subdued voice. “It is cold here—too cold for midsummer.”

A low whisper came out of the dark.

“Aye, it is cold. The gaze of the basilisk chills you.”

“Who’s that?” Raynor snarled. He whirled, his sword bare in his hand. Eblik crouched, great hands flexing.

Quiet laughter sounded. A shadow stepped from behind an oak trunk. A giant figure moved forward, indistinct in the gloom.

“A friend. Or at least, no enemy. Put up your blade, man. I have no quarrel with you.”

“No?” Raynor growled. “Then why slink like a wolf in the dark?”

“I heard the noise of battle. I heard strange footsteps in the forest of Mirak. These called me forth.”

A glimmer of wan, silvery light crept through the
trees. The moon was rising. Its glow touched a great billow of white hair; shaggy, tufted eyebrows, a beard that rippled down upon the newcomer’s breast. Little of the man’s face could be seen. An aquiline beak of a nose jutted out, and somber dark eyes dwelt on Raynor. A coarse gray robe and sandals covered the frame of a giant.

“Who are you?”

“Ghiar, they call me.”

“What talk is this of a—Basilisk?” Eblik asked softly.

“Few can read the stars,” Ghiar said. “Yet those who can know the Dwellers in the Zodiac. Last night the sign of the Archer was eclipsed by the Fish of Ea. And this night the Basilisk is in the ascendancy.” The deep voice grew deeper still; organ-powered it rolled through the dark aisles of the forest. “Seven signs hath the Zodiac! The Sign of the Archer and the Sign of the Fish of Ea! The Sign of the Serpent and that of the Mirror! The Basilisk and the Black Flower—and the Sign of Tammuz which may not be drawn. Seven signs—and the Basilisk rules tonight.”

Meeting the brooding stare of those dark eyes, Raynor felt a nameless sense of unease.

“My business is not with the stars,” half-angrily he said. “I seek men, not mirrors and serpents.”

The tufted eyebrows lifted.

“Yet the stars may aid you, stranger, as they have
aided me,” Ghiar rumbled. “As they have told me, for example, of a captive maid in Malric’s castle.”

Raynor tensed. “Eh?”

“Baron Malric rules these marshes. His men captured your wench, and she is his prisoner now.”

“How do you know this?” Raynor snapped.

“Does it matter? I have certain powers—powers which may aid you, if you wish.”

“This is sorcery, Prince,” Eblik muttered. “Best run your blade through his hairy gullet.”

Raynor hesitated, as though almost minded to obey. Ghiar shrugged.

“Malric’s castle is a strong one; his followers are many. You alone cannot save the girl. Let me aid you.”

Raynor’s laugh was hotly scornful. “You aid me, old man? How?”

“Old? Aye, I am older than you think. Yet these oaks, too, are ancient, and they are strong with age. Let me tell you a secret. Malric fears the stars. He was born under the Sign of the Fish of Ea, but to me has been given power to rule, not to serve. The baron knows my power, and in my name you may free the girl.”

Eblik broke in. “What would you gain by this?”

For a moment Ghiar was silent. The cold wind furled his white beard and tugged at his gray robe.

“What would I gain? Perhaps vengeance. Perhaps Baron Malric is my enemy. What does that matter to you? If I give you my aid, that should be enough.”

“True,” Raynor said. “Though this smacks of sorcery to me. However”—he shrugged—“Shaitan knows we need help, if Malric be as strong as you say.”

“Good!” Ghiar’s somber eyes gleamed with satisfaction. He fumbled in his robe, brought out a small glittering object. “This amulet will be your weapon.”

Raynor took the thing and scrutinized it with interest. The amulet was perhaps as large as his palm, a disc of silvery metal on which figures were graven clockwise.

Six signs the amulet bore.

An arrow and a fish; a serpent and a circle; a flower
and a tiny dragon-like creature with a long tail and a row of spines on its back.

In the amulet’s center was a jewel—cloudy black, with a gleaming starpoint in its tenebrous heart.

“The Sign of Tammuz,” whispered Ghiar. “Which may not be drawn! Yet by the star in the black opal ye may know him, Tammuz, Lord of the Zodiac!”

Raynor turned the object in his hand. On the amulet’s back was a mirror-disc.

Ghiar said warningly, “Do not look too long at the steel. Through the Sign of the Mirror the power of the Basilisk is made manifest, and you may need that power. Show Malric the talisman. Order him, in my name, to free the girl. If he obeys, well. If he refuses”—the deep voice sank to an ominous whisper—“if he refuses, turn the amulet. Let him gaze into the Sign of the Mirror!”

Ghiar’s hand lifted; he pointed south. “There is your road. The moon is up. Ride south!”

Raynor grunted, turned to his horse. Silently he vaulted to the saddle and turned the steed’s head into the trail. Eblik was not far behind.

Once Raynor turned to look over his shoulder. Ghiar was still standing in the clearing, his shaggy head lifted, motionless as an image.

The warlock stared up at the stars.

2. THE SIGN OF THE BASILISK

So Eblik and Prince Raynor came to the outlaw’s castle, a great gray pile of stone towering above the gloomy forest. They came out of the woods and stood silent for a time, looking across a broad grassy meadow, beyond which the castle brooded like a crouching beast. Red flame of lamps and flambeaux glittered from the mullioned windows. In the gateway light glistened on armor.

“Follow!” Raynor snapped, and spurred forward.

Across the sward they fled, and before the nodding
guardsman has sprung to alertness, two muscular figures were almost upon him. Bearded lips opened in a shout that died unuttered. Gleaming steel thrust through a bare throat, slipped free, stained crimson. Choking on his own blood, the guard clawed at the gate and fell slowly, face down, to lie motionless in the moonlight.

“One guard,” Raynor murmured. “Baron Malric fears few enemies, it seems. Well, that will make our task the easier. Come.”

They went through the flagged courtyard and entered the castle itself. A bare sentry-room of stone, with a great oak door in the far wall—a room stacked with weapons, sword and mace and iron war-hook. Raynor hesitated, and then slipped quietly to the door. It was not barred. He pushed it gently open and peered through the crack. Eblik saw his master’s figure go tense.

Raynor looked upon the castle’s great hall. High-ceilinged it stretched up to oak rafters, blackened with smoke, that crisscrossed like a spider’s web far above. The room itself was vast. Rich furs and rugs covered the floor; a long T-shaped table stretched almost from wall to wall. Around it, laughing and shouting in vinous mirth as they fed, were the men of Malric, his outlaw band.

Bearded men, wolf-fierce, gnawing on mutton-bones and swilling from great mugs of heady spiced liquor. At the head of the board, on an ornate throne, sat the baron himself—and he was truly a strange man to lord over these lawless savages.

For Malric was slim and dark and smiling, with a gaily youthful face, and long hair that fell loosely about his slim shoulders. He wore a simple brown tunic, with loose, baggy sleeves, and his hands were busy twirling a gilded, filigreed chalice. He looked up as two burly outlaws entered, half dragging the slim form of a girl.

It was Delphia. She still wore her dinted armor, and her ebony hair, unbound, fell in ringlets about her pale face. There was beauty in that face, wild and lawless beauty, and fire and strength in the jet eyes. She straightened and glared at Malric.

“Well?” she snapped. “What new insult is this?”

“Insult?” the baron questioned, his voice calm
and soft. “I intend none. Will you eat with us?” He motioned to a chair that stood vacant beside him.

“I’d sooner eat with wild dogs,” Delphia declared.

And at her words a low, ominous growl rose from the outlaws. One man, a burly fellow with a cast in one eye and a white scar disfiguring his cheek, leaped up and hurried to the girl’s side. There he turned to face Malric.

“Have I given you leave to rise, Gunther?” the baron asked gently.

For answer the other growled an oath. “By Shaitan!” he snarled. “You’ve kept me waiting long enough, Malric. This wench is my own. I captured her, and I’ll have her. If she eats with us, she sits beside me!”

“So?” Malric’s voice did not change. Ironic laughter gleamed in the dark eyes. “Perhaps you grow tired of my rule, Gunther. Perhaps you wish to sit on my throne, eh?”

The outlaws watched, waiting. A hush hung over the long table. Involuntarily Raynor’s hand crept to his sword-hilt. He sensed death in the air.

Perhaps Gunther sensed it too. The white scar on his cheek grew livid. He roared an inarticulate oath and whipped out a great blade. Bellowing, he sprang at Malric. The sword screamed through the air.

The baron scarcely seemed to move, so swift was his rising. Yet suddenly he stood facing Gunther, and his slim hand dipped into his loose sleeve and came out with the light glittering of bright metal.

Swift as a snake’s striking was Malric’s cast. And a lean knife shot through the air and found its mark unerringly. Through eye and thin shell of bone and into soft, living brain it sped. Gunther screamed hoarsely once and his sword missed its target, digging instead into the wood of the table.

The outlaw’s body bent back like a drawn bow. Gunther clawed at his face, his nails ripping away skin and flesh in a death agony.

And he fell, his mail ringing and clashing, to lie silent
at Malric’s feet.

The baron seated himself, sighing. Once more his fingers toyed with the glided chalice. Seemingly he ignored the shout of approbation that thundered up from the outlaws.

But after a moment he glanced up at Delphia. He gestured, and the two guards dragged her forward.

Watching at the door, Raynor decided that it was time to act. Madness, perhaps, walking into a den of armed enemies. But the prince had changed his opinion. He had developed a queer, inexplicable confidence in Ghiar’s talisman. He found the disc in his belt, cupped it in his palm, and with a word to Eblik kicked open the door and stepped into the hall.