Flash Gordon (23 page)

Inside the temple, before the Tree Men had reacted, Barin cried, “He’s mine! I hunt him alone!”

The vine ended twenty feet above the swamp. Wondering if he would strike land or water, Flash dropped through the green mists. He landed in a foot of particularly fetid liquid. Without glancing about (he could not see far in any direction), Flash ran beneath the village. He did not have a plan
per se;
he was still desperately improvising. He hoped to return later and hijack a flier or something, but his immediate objective was to avoid recapture.

He dashed through a maze of swirling green mist. Occasionally he paused, felt his heart pounding, wondered how long he could continue running madly before he collapsed in an exhausted heap; his subsequent running was at a quicker pace, though it ultimately slowed until he paused again. The mists caressed and cooled his perspiration. His trousers soaked water up to his thighs, weighing him down as much as his fatigue; he perceived his steps as sluggish. Coherent fragments flickered through his mind as he ran. What if he traveled in a circle? What if he became lost forever? What would happen to Dale and Zarkov then? The frantic trembling of panic weakened his leg muscles. Beyond loomed what appeared to be a large shallow pool; near a huge trunk on the opposite side hung three vines. Flash smiled. Perhaps he might pick up information on his pursuers. Who knows? He might even reassert some control over the situation. He made for the vines.

He stepped on what appeared to be a carpet of leaves over mud; and immediately sank to his waist in quicksand. All manner of horrible scenarios occurred to him, each one ending with his death. He imagined himself smothering to death, gasping for oxygen and instead sucking warm gook into his mouth and up his nose. Spotting some vines that led toward solid ground, he lunged for them, an effort which only caused him to sink another foot. He wished that he could reach the vines without lunging, but he was sinking too quickly to tread his way slowly. He had no choice but to lunge again. And again. The quicksand was up to his shoulders when he realized, with a shudder, that his only opportunity to grab the vines would be beneath the surface. His skin feeling as if it was pulling up stakes and crawling away from him, he submitted to the tug of the quicksand and blindly moved his hands through the density.

He found the vines. He pulled his head above the surface, experiencing a tremendous elation. Only in retrospect did he realize how much he feared death by suffocation. He pulled himself with difficulty to the dry land, turned over on his back, and drank in the sweet, musty air of Arboria. He lay silently for a moment. The peacefulness of the swamp was suddenly, surreally broken when the ground began to slurp.

Something big and blunt pressed against him, bearing him down before he could scramble from beneath it. The slurping ground swelled up like a frog’s bulging throat. Instinctively, he grabbed at what appeared to be a huge spider leg before it weighed down his shoulder, and his free hand waved about until it, too, grasped a spider leg. He felt a tiny mouth equipped with a pair of miniature pincers working in the middle of his back. It would take that mouth a long time to eat him, but the spider legs would ensure he stayed within its pitiful range. The spider would slowly eat him for hours.

For the first time since he landed on Mongo, Flash panicked. He had endured shock after shock; he had been granted reprieve after reprieve, only to die helplessly in the grip of a giant spider. He fought back, but not with reason. He snapped off the tip of a spider leg and, rolling over, tried to pierce the inflated belly. But the skin was as tough as leather.

Standing on a gnarled root twice his height, Barin watched the struggle with a stoic façade. However, his stomach glowed with warmth, and he foresaw his future with a curious, overwhelming optimism. Soon the man he hated most in the universe would be shreds awaiting entry into the Sloth Spider’s mouth. The blood vessels in Barin’s forehead throbbed. No, he would have to produce Gordon’s body if Aura and Ming were to believe his story. He aimed his crossbow at the spider’s stomach; he fired the incendiary arrow.

Flash listened as the arrow whizzed through the air and exploded in a shower of white sparks against the leathery stomach, deflating it like a stationary helium balloon. The legs immediately eased the pressure on Flash, enabling him to push himself to one end of the spider. White pus flew from the wound in a sputtering stream whose volume drowned the creature’s last gasping slurps.

When Flash saw Barin standing over him and realized the Prince and no other had rescued him, he barely restrained a shout. He had reached Barin’s well of decency!

He, too, felt a curious surge of optimism, but it quickly sank in the despair that nurtures a fatal discouragement as Barin quietly reloaded his weapon.

These people are just a mass of contradictions,
thought Flash.

Barin grinned and aimed. Flash made ready to jump, but the spider’s skin had folded over his feet. Breaking away would be difficult.

Suddenly, a laser beam blasted the crossbow from Barin’s hands. Equally surprised, the foes turned to see a Hawk Man perched on a limb, with several of his fellows hovering nearby.

“Vultan wants a word with you, Barin.”

“This arrogant scum begs a thousand pardons for having the impertinence to wake you, Most Imperious Leader,” said the pilot of the transport flier. “Truly my head should be shorn from my shoulders and my precious jewels stuffed into my mouth for daring to distract you from the pleasant dreams which have doubtlessly ensnared you.”

“What is your report?” replied Klytus. His tone hinted at weariness and confusion. He lay nearly perpendicular to the floor in a coffinlike bed installed in the wall.

“We’ve scanned a Hawk Man patrol four hundred miles east I am most ashamed to admit I anticipate your pleasure as I say that the Hawk Men have Gordon and Prince Barin with them.”

Klytus stifled a yawn. “They are flying toward the Sky Palace?”

“Yes, Sire.”

“Wake me when it’s in sight.” Klytus pressed a button; a panel slid down and enclosed the bed in darkness, concealing it from the crew, as it sank to a horizontal position.

Prince Vultan squatted on his silver Royal Perch in the banquet room of the Sky Palace. His mating urge had totally disappeared, but it would return soon enough, as soon as he took care of certain matters. His toes picked up straw and crushed it between them, his sole indication of nervousness as he scrutinized Gordon and Barin. (Though he ran his fingers through his beard, the allusion was to calculating detachment rather than agitation.) Pecking at either shoulder with no discernible rhythm, Luro stood beside the Hawk Man Prince; once he reached behind a guard and took a sweetmeat from a banquet table, but a disapproving glance from Vultan convinced him to return it.

Flash and Barin were flanked by guards. The awesome beauty of their journey from Arboria—in addition to their utter dependence on the strength of their captors—had so dazzled them they had forgotten the pressing issues of the Mongian kingdom, and they were only now becoming capable of coping with reality. Barin exclaimed, “You’d sell us to Ming?!”

Vultan rolled his eyes. “By the Gods, I think your surprise is genuine! Come on, Barin, do you actually expect mercy here? What would you do if I was a captive in your kingdom?”

Barin snorted disdainfully. “I would remind you of Article Seventeen of Ming’s Law: ‘No captive Prince of Mongo shall be offered for ransom without the option of combat with an opponent of his choice.’ ”

His eyes closed and his head bobbing, Vultan impulsively gestured for Barin to hurry it up during the recitation. Then he grasped the implications. His eyes popped open. “I haven’t read that stupid book in years. Does such an article exist?” he asked Luro.

“I’m afraid it does.”

Barin beamed. “I’ve read it many times,” he said proudly.

“You had good reason after Ming executed your father,” said Luro viciously.

“Now, now,” said Vultan, “I seem to recall Ming executed your father too.” He turned to Barin. “This is a damned nuisance. Who do you choose to fight?”

Barin glared at Flash. “Him!”

Stunned by this latest unexpected development, the Earthling exclaimed, “This place is a lunatic asylum!”

A giant of a Hawk Man with rippling bronzed muscles swung a mallet with all his strength at a gong a third taller than he. As Dale listened to the reverberations resulting from the meeting of the mallet and the metal, she could not help but think her life had somehow become a J. Arthur Rank Production. Like a fragile sex object with no will of her own, she had been yanked from one melodramatic situation only to be thrust into another. As she and Zarkov walked to the court (glimpsing the Hawk Men perched on benches and tables through the spaces between the curtains), she wondered what ludicrous ceremony her captors would soon subject her to. She noticed Zarkov making mental figures while staring at his watch. “Hans, just what are you doing?”

“I’m computing just how much longer the Earth has remaining. Making allowances for time variables and other factors which seem farfetched to the layman, I calculate the Earth has about thirteen hours and five minutes left.”

“That’s wonderful! You’re telling me we have to save the Earth and we haven’t even found . . .” Then, she saw
him!

When Flash saw Dale approaching, running along the border of the opening in the center of the banquet room, he broke away from Vultan and the guards too quickly for them to detain him. The vision of her—with her arms outstretched, her cheeks red with passion, her smile so sincere and gay—molded his life into a solid thing of permanence. Though he feared he would clumsily collide with her, she drifted into his strong arms like a dream personified. Her lips touched his for the first time, and it seemed the history of his entire life had inexorably led to this moment. What did it matter if this was a deterministic universe? The point was that he was in love, questions of free will be damned! He had never before felt so free as during those ten seconds when their lips drank in passions wild and plentiful before the awestruck court of the Hawk Men (not even the most famous mating rituals of legends equalled this).

“It’s so crazy!” Dale breathlessly whispered into his ear. “Last time I saw you I prayed it was a dream; this time I’m praying it’s not! Are you okay?”

Flash grinned so wide his mouth hurt. “I am now.”

“Me too—but have I got some crazy stories to tell you!”

“Let’s save them for our kids.”

Holding her expression with an effort, Dale thought,
Our kids? Should I tell him now about my operation? Oh well, there’s plenty of time. He’ll take it well because he’s such a liberal. But there’s one thing that can’t wait.
“If that’s a marriage proposal, I accept.”

Their lips again became thirsty for mutual ecstasy, and they neared one another as if moving outside of their own volition. But they had touched for only a moment when two grim guards pulled Flash away from her.

Dale struck a guard on the biceps. “Will you leave us alone? I just got engaged!”

Flash smiled bravely. “See you in a while—I hope!”

“Where are they taking you?”

“Don’t ask,” replied Flash, looking over his shoulder.

As Flash and Barin faced Vultan, Dale strained to pick up some indication of what he was saying to them; she could not help but think that the Prince of the Hawk Men was, despite his tendency toward rashness, a crafty devil, a shrewd judge of character. Perhaps these attributes had saved him many times from the more severe manifestations of Ming’s wrath. At any rate, Vultan had realized he was safe from a treacherous blow because Barin’s hatred for Flash took precedence over all his other emotions; Dale admitted to herself that it required no great insight to realize Flash would never kill in cold blood, regardless of the provocation. Vultan evidently spoke in low tones, for the guards nearby leaned over to hear. However, his gestures were delivered robustly; he shook his fist between them, held his palm flat, turned it at sharp angles, stabbed the air with an imaginary knife, and shook his fist again. The bronze Hawk Man struck the gong; when its noise died, Vultan pointed to the flat disk in the center of the Sky Palace and said loudly, “All right, I want you two to get out there and fight!”

Barin followed Flash across a gangplank onto the disk. When Luro pulled a lever on a portable control box, the gangplank withdrew, hissing pneumatically. Flash glanced at the bottomless skies below; clouds of many colors billowed, but land was not to be seen. The disk appeared to be supported by rays generated by numerous antigravity devices, and Flash noticed panels that could insulate the disk from certain rays, thus implying it was not always stable. He gulped.

Biro threw two black whips between the duelists. “Let the combat begin!” proclaimed Vultan, Prince of the Hawk Men. “To the death!”

Flash attempted to shake Barin’s hand, but the Tree Man Prince was already taking off his gloves, disdainfully ignoring his foe. Barin casually threw his gloves off the disk.

They warily stalked one another, neither permitting the other to come too near the whips. Their leather soles provided little footing on the slick, smooth surface. Flash found himself concentrating as much on maintaining his balance as on what Barin was doing.

Barin lunged for the whips. Flash smacked him with a right cross, making a direct hit on the nose. Barin rolled with the punch, otherwise his nose would have sprayed him with his own blood. After they regained their footing, Barin retaliated, striking Flash a glancing blow on the cheekbone.

Hawk Men and Hawk Women cooed with excitement, but a scowling Vultan, his mating urges suddenly prodding him to engage in less violent activities, sat tugging at his beard.

Flash and Barin exchanged several blows, repeatedly sending each other away from the whips. Then they stalked about again, each awaiting an opening. Barin found his when Flash glanced at Dale (standing between Zarkov and Vultan) to see how she was faring. Lunging forward, the Tree Man Prince grabbed a whip.