Sandcats of Rhyl (16 page)

A tiny POP! startled him. Looking toward the pile of ash on the floor, he was surprised to see what had once been Dhal Shu-tri gone. And the odor of the cremated man’s body was gone, too.

He had wished it; it happened.

Slayton laughed long and loud. Of all humans, he was the mightiest. He was a god!

“My little friend, you should never have been so greedy. Wanting to kill me and steal
this
for yourself! How absurd! No one will ever be able to kill me. And no one will ever again take that which rightfully belongs to a king!”

Slayton went to the low throne. The very stone quivered under his weight. He smiled. This was where he belonged. The throne was his by right of superiority. Even if it was a bit too low, a little too wide for him to comfortably sit on.

As the thought crossed his mind, Slayton felt the throne come alive. It changed shape, flowing and altering itself to fit the contours of his body. He thought it was too hard; it softened until he was satisfied. It didn’t have a high enough back; the very stone seemed to sprout and grow to the proper height. There were no ornaments adorning his throne. A king — a god! — deserved the finest.

Lustrous gems studded the arms and rimmed the high back of the throne. Slayton stood and spun, facing the throne. It was perfect. It was everything he could have desired in a pedestal of power. Once, he had seen a king’s throne that looked similar. But it lacked the splendor of the dark rock embedded with the semi-living, writhing gemstones. There was nothing exceptional about the other throne. This one was specially tailored from his dreams and wishes; it was constructed from the deepest recesses of his mind.

“Those fools on Earth should see me now. They called me a criminal. I’m royalty. The frontier worlds sneered at me. They said I was too brutal even on worlds bragging about their bloodthirstiness. I’ve risen above those swine, those slimy vultures! They should see me now!”

Slayton made an imperious gesture, sweeping his arm over the small enclosure. For a moment, he hesitated, unsure of what he was seeing. Then he smiled, regally gestured and seated himself on the throne.

Fully a hundred people knelt before him, paying him homage and worshiping him as they should. He was divine. He had pulled himself out of the gutter of normal humanity and transcended all others. Lane Slayton gestured, and the assembled multitudes approached.

“So, Liana, you come to beg my forgiveness. You are sorry you scorned me on Eden. Is that it?”

The specter took on substance and became solid. The woman kneeling in front of Slayton cried, her voice piteous, “I erred! Forgive me for sending you away. I will do anything you want now!”

“Nothing will save you, Liana. You could have been my queen. You could have ruled at my side. But you chose Herak. He delighted you, and you married him. Now it is time for retribution. Beg before I pass my imperial sentence on you.”

“Lane darling, it was a mistake. You were the only one I’ve ever loved. Spare me. Herak means nothing to me!”

“So? Then strangle him. With your bare hands.”

Slayton pointed. A broad-shouldered man, naked to the waist, knelt beside the lithe young woman.

“There. Strangle him with those delightful fingers of yours, those fingers so skillful and supple.”

She turned pleading eyes to the man on the throne. His expression brooked no challenge. Reluctantly, she went to Herak and put her hands gently on his shoulders. Slowly moving, her fingers circled the man’s throat.

“Squeeze. NOW!”

Convulsively, Liana jerked. Her fingers tightened around Herak’s neck. The man struggled but couldn’t break the woman’s grip. Not until he was dead did she release him to fall limply to the floor. The look of terror and loathing on her face satisfied Slayton.

“Be gone.” Herak’s body vanished like mist in the hot sun. “And you, Liana, for you I have a special treat. You could have ruled a world — a universe! — but you chose differently. Die.” His voice was low, deadly.

“DIE!”

Liana doubled over, clutching her stomach. Pain was evident in every line of her body. She trembled and rolled on the floor. Spasms assailed her muscles. Bones broke. Then she died.

Slayton coldly studied the body and waved his hand in a motion of dismissal. The body disappeared, joining Herak’s in a world constructed entirely from Slayton’s imagination.

“Entertainment! I desire entertainment! And food! And drink! Bring it all. Now!” he roared. Assembling like Roman legions, servants began piling food in front of the man. He gently touched a leg of roast fowl. It was warm and greasy under his fingers. Slayton raised it to his lips and tasted. The flesh was tender, succulent with a savory flavor unlike anything he had ever eaten before. Hungrily, he devoured the meat. He ripped through the entire bird before drinking deeply from a wine goblet handed him by a phantom servant.

The wine warmed him, chilled him, combined all the finest qualities of the costliest wines in the galaxy. The goblet never emptied as he continued drinking. Slightly drunk, he shouted, “Where’s the entertainment? Bring it on!”

A juggler began spinning knives in an intricate circular pattern. Five knives were kept in the air, then six, then ten. He was tireless. His coordination was superb. The silvered blades twirled sharp and deadly. Slayton watched the juggler with admiration. A sudden desire to watch the juggler miss hit him.

One of the razor sharp knives slashed the juggler on the arm. He continued deftly spinning the remaining blades. Slayton laughed and willed another slip. The juggler began to bleed profusely from the second cut. And the third and the fourth. He continued juggling until he died in a pool of his own blood.

Slayton clapped his hands together in joy. How often he had wanted to see this! Then the body and blood vanished back into the realm of his inner mind.

“A war! Fight! Have at it!” Slayton leaned back in his throne as ten men, dressed in primitive armor, attacked another ten outfitted with modern weapons. The latter’s force-blades sliced easily through even the tough metal greaves and shields. It was a slaughter. Slayton replayed it, fifteen men pitted against two with modern weapons. The result was the same. He tried once more. Nineteen against one.

This time, the bloodshed was brutal, tragic, heroic, and the lone man fell under the sheer weight of his opponents.

Slayton summoned the survivors to his throne. They bowed deeply. He reached out and produced a jeweled medallion for each. He said, “Here, my valiant warriors. A token of my esteem for your fighting prowess!”

And they vanished.

Slayton held the scepter in his hands, staring deep into the everchanging depths of the jewels. He realized how vast was his power. He could do anything his mind could conceive. And his appetites, his hatreds, were infinite. Throughout his life there had been those he wanted to see punished, put to death in slow and horrible ways.

It happened in front of his throne. The reactions were exactly as he had always imagined they would be.

Foods, wines, the finest of clothing was all his for the asking. He had only to think of it, and it was his.

On impulse, Slayton began producing jewels of all varieties. Fire opals and maiden’s tears and sunstones and star sapphires and perfect rubies as big as his fist. All in piles waist deep. Slayton conjured up porters to take the gems to the tunnel leading out to the aircars. As they departed with their precious burdens, Slayton laughed aloud, his mocking tones filling the black wood room.

“Why am I bothering with such things? I control the entire planet! I am invincible! Who can stand against me? No one!” he answered himself.

A sudden coldness clutched at his belly. Who? The question wasn’t who but what.

The answer: the sandcats.

The beasts were all over the city. He had killed several of them earlier in the fight with Nightwind. The sandcats had to be eliminated. And he could do it! A little tug with his mind and the scepter would do his every bidding.

He could wish them into nonexistence or blow them apart or…

Or make them his slaves.

The idea appealed to Slayton. The animals appeared to have hands and were obviously intelligent after a fashion. An entire race of slaves. Slaves doing his bidding, controlled by thought. It would be the ultimate in servitude. He would know their every thought, be warned immediately if they tried any treachery, and could make powerful animals bend to his will.

He concentrated on touching the minds of the sandcats. At first, all he received was a garbled message. Then, clearer, came a feeling of being trapped. This was the sandcat thrown into the pit with Nightwind. By now, the beast should have finished off Nightwind, Heuser, and Steorra.

Slayton laughed a little thinking of that strange trio. The tall, gaunt man, the puny little man, and the silly girl with ideals. Idealism had never been a part of his philosophical weaponry; cynicism served him too well.

But he could afford to be generous. He was King Lane the First, the ruler of all of Rhyl. He reached out with his mind and gave the supreme compliment to the sandcat.

Well done,
he thought. So what else could the animal expect from him? To be let out of the trap? Hardly.

Improving his grasp of the technique of using the scepter as a mind-control device, he ordered in several of the sandcats. They came against their wills, but they came. He lined them up, made them walk around his room in a circle, turn left and right, go through a complete close-order drill and then form an honor guard on either side of his throne. Tiring of these sandcats, he cast further afield and found others. They were forced to join their comrades. He began making them do ever more complex maneuvers for his pleasure.

There was an odd quality about the sandcats’ minds. They were as powerful mentally as physically, yet crumpled when he entered their minds. There seemed to be no real resistance to his telepathic intrusion. Attributing this to his own omnipotence, Slayton continued adding sandcats to his strange kingdom. Some fought back mentally but, backed by the power of the scepter, he was able to easily quell their rebellion. He kept them in their place but knew, underneath the surface of subservience, they would turn on him in an instant.

“Come! Come and see your new ruler!”

The sandcats approached his throne. He forced them to bow their heads, to debase themselves in his presence. Oddly, the more he forced them, the quicker they were to respond a second time. Slayton enjoyed his power to the utmost.

“Let’s see if this elite group can be enlarged.” His mind boiled out, hunting other sandcats. After adding a half-dozen more, he felt his control slipping. He could maintain discipline in the group but only at the expense of tremendous concentration. Knowing there were far more sandcats than he could control directly, he took the obvious course of action.

“Protect me, warn me,” he commanded a group of twenty. “If any other sandcat comes, attack and kill.” He checked the loyalty of the group immediately.

Forcing a lone sandcat to come into the palace, he watched what occurred. His mentally dominated beasts literally ripped the other to shreds using their ineffectual-looking little hands and fingers. Slayton vowed to never let them too close with those razor-sharp appendages. They reminded him too much of the wafer-thin razors carried by a tribe he had encountered on one of the frontier worlds. Genocide had been the only way he could control that particular uprising against authority.

And he wasn’t about to let a never-ending stream of beings potentially subservient to him dry up because of their own stupidity. After all, he reasoned, he was their ruler and they should worship him. That he had to coerce them was a point against the sandcats. They should see the nobility inherent in him without being ordered. They should instantly obey because it was the proper thing!

He held the scepter tightly, feeling its power seep through his tiring body. Controlling so many subjects was leaving him drained, exhausted, and unable to think clearly.

“Go,” he ordered. “Go and guard my city.” He watched the silent stream of sandcats leave the throne room. Left alone, Slayton mentally checked his security. This was a fine system, he decided. He could make sure no traitors were plotting to assassinate him. If humans proved as amenable to control as the sandcats, he could conquer any world in the galaxy.

“Any world,” he mused. “Any world in the galaxy. Like Earth. The old master of the inhabited sectors. But no, if I can have any world, why not an up and coming power like Medan? A military power to be reckoned with? Imagine, Lane Slayton, Emperor of Medan, Ruler of the Galaxy!”

He chuckled at the thought. Fantasies wafted through his mind. He created situations, worlds, events, and let them parade in front of him. The ghosts-made-substantial faded away as he tired of his little game. The only certain way of finding if the scepter worked on humans as well as the sandcats was to try it.

First Rhylston because it was nearby. If he could conquer the dusty little city, it would be an easy step taking over a starship. And from the starship to any other planet. And from that planet, then to Earth. Or Medan.

The galaxy was waiting for a new name to be emblazoned in its history. Earth had its Napoleons and Hitlers and Hsings. Medan its Markkins and Carlsons. He would add new chapters to both worlds, combine them and write an entire new history for all the colonized planets.

The stars twinkled overhead until Slayton fell asleep, bone tired from his mental exertions. As he drifted off, like all his other phantasms, the stars vanished.

NIGHTWIND PACED AROUND the pit wondering exactly what he should do. The sandcat lay quietly, its eyes following his nervous path. The harder the man mentally worked over the problem, the more impossible it seemed escaping the trap they were in.

On impulse, Nightwind sat cross-legged in front of the sandcat and carefully said, “Could you support the weight of two of us?”

Yes…

“I want to try getting out of the pit. What I …” Nightwind stopped as he saw the glazed look cross the eyes of the sandcat. The animal seemed in a trance, hypnotized. Then it purred like its smaller cousin on Earth, rolled over and kicked its feet at the air. Nightwind had the vague sensation of intense pleasure. He couldn’t imagine the reason for the sandcat’s sudden joy. It didn’t make sense at all.