Flash Gordon (24 page)

At that point, an irritated Vultan demanded that Luro hand over the disk controls.

Barin snapped his whip three meters to Flash’s left. And two meters to Flash’s right. He would have snapped it a third time to the same rhythm, but his foot slipped a bit and he was forced to steady himself. Even as he did so, Vultan manipulated the controls, causing the disk to sway at this angle and that, like a saucer balanced on a juggler’s stick. Flash regretted that his professional football career had not helped him to become more graceful; he was totally unprepared to deal with this contest of balance; even his most delicate moves on Astroturf had been brutal and swift, as befits those of a passing quarterback. Now he concentrated on maintaining his balance, on the defensive, while the more poised Barin pressed the attack. Finally, the swaying of the disk aided him in reaching his whip.

Dale bit into her fist and held tightly onto Zarkov’s arm. The scientist caressed her hand, absently attempting to comfort her while he stared in horror at the proceedings.

Though Flash flicked his whip at Barin, his only purpose was to hold off the Prince’s relentless attack. He grabbed at the tip of Barin’s whip twice, each time only clasping empty air. And he was, oddly enough, partially relieved at each failure, for he did not know if he would be able to keep his footing while he tried to pull the weapon from Barin’s hands. The futility and the insanity of this senseless combat was distracting Flash as he felt a leather snake twirl about the handle of his whip and bite into his fingers. He released his weapon just as Barin jerked his in a manner that sent Flash’s flying onto the disk. Pausing to savor the moment, Barin kicked Flash’s whip off the disk, deep into the bottomless sky. Shocked, making a token lunge toward his weapon though it was already too late by far, Flash lost his balance and slipped to one knee.

Dale screamed, immediately regretting it. Vultan, on the other hand, proclaimed, “This is boring!” He pressed a button in an impatient manner that implied he wished to end the duel swiftly.

Blunt-edged knives with sharp, spikelike points rose from the surface of the disk; when Vultan manipulated certain controls, they rose and fell in a chaotic pattern.

Aghast at this latest unexpected horror, beset by a vision of a bloody Flash with the knives protruding throughout his body, Dale screamed a second time. She habitually screamed with her eyes closed, so she did not see Barin accidentally wrap the end of his whip around a knife.

The duelists half-rushed, half-slid toward one another on the tilting disk; they grappled like demonic wrestlers. Suddenly, Barin caught Flash in a terrible grip and bent him backward, directing his face toward the point of a knife.

“Promise me something!” Flash wheezed.

“What?”

“If you kill me, team up with Vultan and fight Ming.”

Barin’s only reply was renewed pressure, forcing Flash’s face a centimeter nearer to the knife.

“You’ve got to!” said Flash. “For your own sake!”

For many moments the duelists were still, two statues engaged in an eternal struggle. But gradually, due to his advantage in leverage, Barin pressed Flash downward, downward, the progress slow but steady. Barin’s victory and Flash’s gory impalement seemed inevitable.

Suddenly, Dale shouted, “Flash, I love you! And we have twelve hours left to save the Earth!”

As if saving his own life was not enough justification, this was all the incentive Flash required. Aided by an onslaught of adrenaline coursing through his system, Flash rallied and pushed Barin away.

The Prince of the Tree Men, thinking victory inevitable, believing the Earthling to be ultimately an inconsequential vexation in the scheme of the universe, had not expected another effort on Flash’s part. Indeed, Barin found the turnabout rather astounding as the disk tilted sharply, causing him to lose what remained of his foothold, sending him flying toward the edge. He managed to land belly-first, but he was unable to grab a knife due to the fact that Vultan caused those in his immediate vicinity to sink into the disk. His fingers futilely dug into the greased surface, and a panic unlike any he had ever known welled up inside him as he felt his feet, and then his legs, dangle over nothingness.

Flash realized more quickly what was happening. He knew there was only one chance to rescue Barin, and though the Prince had tried to impale him horribly but a moment before, Flash did not hesitate to try to save him. He leaped toward the edge, grabbed the whip wrapped around the knife, and swung out, catching Barin by the wrist.

For a long moment they stared at one another. Then, wide-eyed, Barin looked below.

“Climb up my arm!” said Flash.

“You’ve won!” boomed Vultan. “Let him fall!”

Flash ignored the Hawk Man Prince. “Quick! I can’t hold you much longer!”

Nervously running his fingers through his beard and involuntarily flapping his wings, Vultan absently allowed the disk to right itself. “What is this?” he asked of Flash’s deed.

“Humanity!” proclaimed Zarkov.

“Humph. Madness,” replied Vultan gruffly. But he left the controls alone.

After Flash pulled Barin to safety, they knelt and stared at one another, breathing heavily and sweating profusely. Flash held out his hand, but the Tree Man Prince still refused to shake it.
My God, what if Zarkov’s wrong?
thought Flash, recalling his attempt to shake hands with the red-robed leader.
What if the gesture is unfriendly on Mongo?

Prince Barin was dizzy, his innards swirling in a maelstrom; the Earthling became truly real in his eyes for the first time as he thought,
Gordon means it! He’s sincere.
Barin pondered the innumerable killings he had witnessed, the slayings he had performed himself, and the mercy killings in the sacred temple. His bloody past became a dream, and he realized that existence was meaningful only if you dared to mold it in accordance with the nobler aspects of human nature. He clasped Flash’s hand. “Where you go, I follow!” He leaped to his feet and shouted to the flabbergasted crowd, “There is something higher than Ming’s Law!”

“Oh, there is, is there?” asked Vultan loudly, moving toward the edge of the platform. He pointed at the smiling Tree Man. He spoke angrily. “Would you care to elucidate on the matter? Would you care to demonstrate the practicability of this higher law before Ming blasts both our kingdoms to shreds?”

The inner glow warming Barin, the glow even the Hawk Men with the thickest skulls perceived, would not permit him to be dismayed by the questions. He appeared to have every intention of answering. Everyone, including and especially Flash, was interested in what he had to say. However, his answer, regardless of its potential brilliance and relevance to the revolutionary situation at hand, was ill-favored by the Fates. For just as Barin opened his mouth to demonstrate anew the thespiac abilities that had amused a tyrant, sirens blared throughout the Sky Palace.

A stunned populace watched through the entry to the port as the black vessel of Klytus approached.

Flash and Barin moved off the disk, walking across the gangplank.

The black shuttlecraft docked. Its doors opened.

The people waited. Vultan looked toward Luro and Biro, but he did not wipe the perspiration from his forehead. Dale and Zarkov watched their captors, searching for an indication of their eventual treatment. Attempting to conceal his nervousness, Flash ran his tongue between his teeth, biting down until the nerve endings began to throb. Only Barin awaited Klytus’s appearance with a relaxed demeanor; he smiled at Flash and moved close to him.

Finally, Klytus walked alone down the dock, into the banquet room. The very wind had stilled during his approach, as if he wielded power over the elements themselves.

Prince Barin regarded the masked man with a royal, proud air new to the eyes of Mongians.

Klytus, as usual, was unimpressed. “Agent Zarkov, you will be liquidated for treachery. As for you, Prince Vultan, you will surrender these fugitives at once or the Imperial Fleet will blast your kingdom and your subjects to atoms.” Raising his shoulders and holding his hands before his stomach, Klytus expected them all to succumb to the inevitable.

K
LYTUS
turned his terrible, impassive mask toward all the people of interest to him in the Sky Palace, as if he was reading emotions he had lost all aptitude for comprehending. His cold, white eyes rested on a certain green-clad Prince. “Step forward, Barin.”

The Prince’s shoulders rose. He spoke grimly. “Address me as Prince Barin.”

“No longer, I think.” Klytus’s reply was casual, at least for him, but Flash believed the Great Gold Face had misunderstood a few nuances in Barin’s tone.

Flash did not doubt, however, that Klytus would have smiled during his next statement if he had possessed the ability. Perhaps he did smile, despite his ingrained stoicism, beneath his mask. He said, “Princess Aura, under our expert persuasion, has implicated you, Barin, in high treason. You are under arrest”—he gestured in an arc—“along with these Earthlings. A prison ship will be here shortly to take you away.”

Barin was pale. “You—you tortured Aura?”

“You bastard!” said Flash. “She may be a spoiled, self-centered little brat, but there’s a decent core in her evil heart!”

Klytus, ignoring Flash, spoke directly to Barin. “An interesting girl! I think she found it rather enjoyable.”

Barin struck Klytus beneath the jaw, stunning him. Unheeding of the pain of his fist, Barin grabbed Klytus and spun him about. “Here, Flash!”

The Earthling scooped up Klytus, ran across the gangplank, and hurled Klytus onto the disk as if he were a twenty-five kilogram sack of fertilizer.

The first knife Klytus struck impaled his forearm. The second ripped through his stomach. Three and four stuck through his right leg. He struggled for a moment. His effort caused number two to tear into his intestinal tract. Still, he would not succumb, possessed as he was of an utterly logical will to live. Managing to slide his forearm from the blade, leaving behind a coating of a yellow puslike substance, he tried to support himself on his hands. He looked down at his organs slurping onto the disk. Then he collapsed. His fingers twitched four times. Now that the will which had perpetuated his existence had been snuffed out, his face began to flow through the openings of his mask.

Horrified, Dale thought,
I take it back. Flash would commit murder in cold blood
,
if blood’s the word.
She shivered.

Luro pecked madly at his shoulders. “This does it. We’re up the void now! The rockets will be on their way!”

“Must you belabor the point?” asked a grumpy Biro.

Vultan ignored the bickering of his two aides. “Into the air, my Hawk People! Take everything you can carry! Fly for your lives!”

The Sky Palace immediately became a scene of pandemonium, as winged people scurried or flew about, some to the skies, others to retrieve their belongings from the nest areas.

His clawed weapon in hand, Vultan turned to Flash. “You young hothead! You’ve brought down destruction on my kingdom!”

Barin stepped between the Earthling and the Hawk Man.

“No, Vultan, he has shown us the way. Stand with us and fight!”

“Against the Imperial Fleet? Your yolk must have soured before you were hatched, my boy; you haven’t any brains!”

Much as Zarkov had earlier, Barin clenched his fist in front of Vultan’s face. “It’s the perfect time. They won’t expect resistance, and we’ll take them by surprise!”

“We can do it,” said Flash in a steady voice.

Zarkov rubbed his hands briskly. “Do you have a lab? I’ll trick up some new weapons!”

Vultan’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “Right now? In a few minutes? What kind of scientist are you?”

Zarkov shrugged. “The usual kind. They taught us how to think pretty quickly back on Earth. You should have seen the things I had to come up with to get my doctorate.”

“You’re all mad! My only duty is to save my Hawk People,” said Vultan. “Evacuate! Fly!”

“Wait!” said Flash. ‘Take us with you.”

Vultan shook his head. “There’s already much more than we can carry. Impossible.”

Barin said, “You’re leaving us to die!”

“You know Ming’s Law, Barin,” said the Prince of the Hawk Men. “Outside his kingdom, the hunter becomes the hunted.”

In less than five minutes, the entire Sky Palace population had fled, leaving behind an extremely untidy banquet room and four stranded ex-prisoners. The Hawk People had flown in all directions, and now they were black specks against blue and purple skies with shimmering pink veils.

Flash walked toward a luxurious section of the room. “Quick! Help me pull down these drapes. Find ropes somewhere. We’ll find ropes and jump to Arboria.”

“It’s not quite that easy,” said Barin.

“Do you want to stay here?” asked Flash tensely.

“It must be fifty miles down!” said Dale, peering over the platform.

“No problem,” said Zarkov. “A body reaches maximum velocity within a few hundred feet.”

“Wonderful,” replied Dale sourly.

Flash tossed a drape to Dale. “Lay it flat,” he said. “We’ll knot lines at the corners and tie them to our belts.”

Suddenly, they heard a roaring so loud it drowned the hissing wind as an afterthought. Barin cursed, his words mere hints in the onslaught of sound. He remained behind as the Earthlings rushed to a balcony, only to see four huge fliers breaking through the clouds and moving toward the Sky Palace.

Flash and Zarkov stared at one another, knowing there was no time during which to attempt another daring escape. Dale embraced Flash, burying her head in his chest.

Like a man sentenced to die (and in his opinion, being brainwashed was a crueler fate), Zarkov retrieved a white drape and waved it from the balcony.

The interior of the Imperial Flier was decorated in crimson and black motifs, only slightly darker than the colors of Ming’s dress uniform. The Emperor of the Universe wore a pointed skullcap with a widow’s peak; when the light struck it at certain unpredictable angles, it shimmered with white lines. Upon his chest were insignia representing the Golden Light that had Created the Cosmos and the Royal Red Blood that Coursed through His Imperial Veins. The material on his shoulders rose into curved peaks highlighted with a golden tapestry. He tugged at his beard as he watched Zarkov wave the white flag of surrender on a screen inside his Royal Command Post.