Elak of Atlantis (28 page)
“Hold!” he whispered. “Do not move! For if you do, I shall slay you.” And one slim hand slipped toward the loose velvet sleeve and the sharp knife Malric wore strapped to his forearm.
“How the devil did you get here?” Raynor snarled.
“I followed the path you opened for me. I swam the lake and crossed the field of the Black Flowers. I tracked you here through the citadel. It was not an easily won victory—no! Of all my men, these few are all that remain. Some sleep amid the Black Flowers. Others died elsewhere. But it does not matter. Ghiar was too reckless when he hired you to steal the girl from my castle. Warlock he may be, but I rule Mirak!”
“Hired me?” Raynor said slowly. “You mistake. Ghiar is my enemy, as he is yours.”
Malric laughed softly. “Well, it does not matter whether you lie or tell truth. For you and this black shall both die here, and after I have found and slain Ghiar, I shall go back to my castle with the wench.”
“After you have slain Ghiar!”
The words whispered out; the samite curtains parted, and a man stepped through. It was the warlock. The dim green light touched the great billow of white beard, the shaggy eyebrows, of the giant. The dark, somber eyes held no emotion.
“You seek me, Malric? I am here. Slay me if you can.”
The baron, after a single start, stood motionless. His gaze locked in a silent, deadly duel with the cold stare of
the wizard.
Abruptly, without warning, Malric moved. Too fast for eyes to follow his hand dipped, came up flashing and brought death. Steel flickered through the air. The keen knife drove at Ghiar’s throat—and fell blunted, ringing on the stones.
“Mortal fool,” the warlock whispered. “You seek to battle the stars in their courses. Malric, I am Lord of the Zodiac. I have power over the Signs that rule men’s lives.”
The baron moistened his lips. His smile was crooked.
“Is this so? I know something of the Zodiac, Ghiar, and I know you do not rule all the signs. You yourself, once spoke to me of being born under the Sign of the Fish of Ea. As was I. How can you rule your ruler—or any other sign? Nor are you Lord of the Stars. There is a certain Sign”—Malric glanced at the great black jewel in the mosaic’s center—“Aye, there is Tammuz. He is Lord of the Master Sign.”
“Who can call on Tammuz?” Ghiar said coldly. “Once in a thousand years is a man born under this Sign. And only such a man may work the ultimate magic. Aye, I say to you I was born under the Sign of the Fish of Ea, but who are you that I should tell you full truth—as I do now?” The warlock frowned at Raynor. “As for you and your servant, you shall die with the others. Had you been wise, you would not have sought me here. This girl is mine; I need her life to give me renewed youth.”
“D’you think I fear a wizard?” Raynor snapped, and sprang. His sword sheared down, screaming through cleft air.
And rebounded, clashing. The weapon dropped from Raynor’s nerveless hand, which was paralyzed as though by a strong electric shock. Snarling an oath, the prince tensed to leap, ready to close with the warlock with bare hands.
Ghiar’s peremptory gesture halted him.
“Rash fools!” the wizard whispered, a chill and dreadful menace in the sibilant words. “You shall die as no man has died for a thousand years.”
His arms lifted in a strange, archaic gesture. A gesture that
reached up toward the stars far above, a gesture that summoned!
Black and ominous came the warlock’s voice.
“Your doom comes. For now I call on the Sign of the Fish of Ea!”
6. THE SIGN OF TAMMUZ
The green light thickened and grew fainter. An eerie, cloudy emerald glow dropped down upon the roofless room. The figure of Ghiar was a dark shadow towering in the dimness. And the deep voice thundered out:
“Ea! Lord of Eridu and E-apsu! Dweller in the house of the watery deep! Shar-apsi! By the power of thy Sign I call on the Lord of that which is below, watcher of Aralu, home of the restless dead. Ea, troubler of the great waters, consort of Damkina, Damgal-nunna, rise now from the eternal abyss!”
The green darkness thickened. Raynor, straining his eyes, could see nothing. He made an effort to move, but found he could not. A weird paralysis held him helpless.
He heard a sound, faint and far away. The sound of waters. The tinkling of brooks, the rushing of mighty cataracts, the thunder of tides crashing on basalt cliffs. The noises of the great deep heralded the coming of Ea, Lord of the waters under the earth.
Nothing existed but the glowing emerald fogs. A deeper light began to grow above. The mists poured up toward it.
Thicker they grew, and thicker. They swirled into an inverted whirlpool, rushing up toward the bright green shining in the air, flooding into it, vanishing. Vanishing as though plunging into an abyss that had no bottom!
A figure swam slowly into view, stiff and rigid. One of Baron Malric’s wolves. Raynor had a glimpse of a strained, agonized face, and then the man was caught up into the torrent and vanished into the emerald glow. A thin, high scream drifted faintly from afar.
There were others after that. One by one the outlaws were caught up by the tide of alien magic, drawn into the weird whirlpool, swirled into nothingness. All were gone at last save for Malric.
Now the baron came into view. His youthful face was expressionless,
but in the wide eyes was a horror beyond life. The bright hair tossed as though the man floated through water.
No sound came from Malric. He drifted up—and vanished!
The tide gripped Raynor. He felt himself lifted weightless, felt himself circling, rising. The shining abyss loomed above him. Desperately he fought to escape from the necromantic spell.
Quite suddenly the green mists were blotted out. Raynor seemed to hang in a black, starless immensity. He was alone in the voice of eternal night.
In the distance a white, chill light began to glow. It approached, meteor-like, and Raynor saw a round, oddly familiar object speeding toward him. Soon it hung in the void not far away, and the prince remembered the deformed monster that had sat on the throne above the abyss—the captive of the snake that he had slain. Here was the same misshapen, hideous head, with its glazed eyes and elongated muzzle, all covered with glittering scales.
The Thing spoke.
“My promise, Prince Raynor. You gave me release. And I promised aid when you should need it most. I bring that aid now.”
“The amulet,” said the monstrous disembodied head.
Abruptly Raynor remembered the talisman Ghiar had given him in Mirak Forest, the disc that bore the Signs of the Zodiac on its surface. He did not seem to move, yet the amulet was in his hand, and lifted high. It had changed. The Signs were erased, all but the black jewel in its center. Within the gem the star-point pulsed and waned with supernal brilliance.
“Tammuz is Lord of the Zodiac,” the hideous muzzle croaked. “His magic is above magic. He is master of truth. Through him you may cast away fetters of glamour and sorcery. Once in a thousand years is a man born under this Sign, and only such a man may call on Tammuz. I am that man! I was born under the Master Sign! Ghiar lies—he boasts of that which he is not! And now, to keep my promise and to aid you, I summon the Lord of the Zodiac. I summon—Tammuz!”
Forthwith the black jewel blazed with an icy, incredible
light, starkly pitiless and blindingly bright; and the fantastic vision snapped out and vanished. The talisman was snatched from Raynor’s hand. He felt firm stone beneath his feet; a cold wind blew on his sweating face.
Once more he was in Ghiar’s citadel. He stood in the roofless room of the Zodiac. But no longer was it filled with the green mists.
Delphia and Eblik stood motionless; near them towered the warlock. Of Malric and his wolves there was no trace.
Ghiar’s beard fluttered in the frigid blast. His deep eyes were hatefilled. And, with a queer, strange certainty, Raynor knew that by the Sign and the power of the real Tammuz, all magic has been stripped from the wizard.
No longer master of dark sorcery, Ghiar was human, vulnerable!
Raynor’s shout was madly exultant as he sprang. The armor of invulnerability had been torn from Ghiar. But inhuman strength still surged in the giant frame. Huge muscles rolled under the coarse robe.
Ghiar swept out his arm in a bone-crushing blow. The shock of it made Raynor reel. Shaking his head blindly, he reeled in and closed with the warlock.
The two men crashed down on the stones. Ghiar fell uppermost; his fingers stabbed down at Raynor’s eyes. The prince rolled his head aside, and the warlock bellowed with pain as his hand smashed against rock. Abruptly Ghiar thrust himself away, and his mighty body dropped upon Raynor with an impact that drove the breath from the smaller mans lungs.
Weakly the prince drove a blow at the wizard’s face. Blood spurted, staining the white beard. Roaring, Ghiar’s hands fastened on Raynor’s throat. They tightened remorselessly.
The prince rolled aside; he caught Ghiar’s body between his legs, locking his feet together. Breath spewed from the warlock’s lips in a foul gust. Ghiar bared his teeth in a murderous grin. And
his fingers tightened—tightened.
A hot, throbbing agony was in Raynor’s skull. He could not breathe. Knifelike pain thrust into his spine. A little more pressure, and his backbone would crack.
Sheer blind madness swept down on the prince then. Like a flood of red waters it poured through him, sweeping away all else but an insane lust to kill—and swiftly.
Raynor’s thigh muscles bulged, holding Ghiar’s body in a vise between them. The grinding strain of that frightful effort made sweat burst out on the prince’s face; yet he knew that this was the crucial time. It was kill or be slain.
Bones cracked and gave sickeningly. There was a sudden softness in the wizard’s body. Ghiar gave a frightful, howling shriek that seemed to burst up from the depths of his lungs. Blood spewed from the gaping mouth, frothed over the white beard, fell on Raynor.
The mighty hands released their grip on the prince’s throat. Ghiar sprang up in one last convulsive effort. Dying, he thrust up his arms to the cold stars and screamed like a beast.
And he fell, as a tree falls, smashing down on the stones. He lay inert. From him blood crept darkly across the mosaic, touching and then covering the Sign of the Fish of Ea, the Sign under which Ghiar had been born and had ruled.
The warlock was dead.
Consciousness left Raynor then. Merciful darkness blanketed him. Nor did he recover until he felt water poured between his lips, felt a cool, soft hand on his brow. He opened his eyes.
Above him sunlight slanted between the branches of an oak. The green, warm daylight of Mirak Forest was all about him. And Delphia knelt at his side, her eyes no longer blinded by sorcery, her face clouded with anxiety.
“Raynor,” she said gratefully. “You’re alive, thank the gods!”
“Alive?” growled Eblik, coming from behind an oak. “I’d not have carried him here if he hadn’t been. How do you feel, Prince?”
“Well enough,” Raynor said. “My legs ache like fire, but I’m unharmed, I think. You carried me out of the
citadel, Eblik?”
“That he did,” Delphia nodded. “And swam the lake with you. The Black Flowers were dead, Raynor, blasted as though by lightning.”
“If you can walk, we’d best be moving,” Eblik said impatiently.
Raynor stood up, wincing slightly. “True. We’ll find horses and leave this accursed forest behind us.”
Together he and Delphia set out along the winding path that led through Mirak. Eblik hesitated a moment before he followed. He looked up at the blue, cloudless sky.
“May the gods grant we get out of this wilderness before nightfall,” he grunted. “Out of this Black Forest, and in another land—a land where the stars are less evil.”
Gripping his war-ax, he hurried after Delphia and Raynor. And, presently, the three of them were swallowed by the cool, dim aisles of the vast forest.
If you've enjoyed this book and would like to read more great SF, you'll find literally thousands of classic Science Fiction & Fantasy titles through the SF Gateway.
For the new home of Science Fiction & Fantasy …
For the most comprehensive collection of classic SF on the internet …
Visit the SF Gateway.
Novels
Fury
(1950)
Mutant
(1953)
The Well Of The Worlds
(1953)
Valley Of The Flame
(1964)
Earth’s Last Citadel
(1964)
The Dark World
(1965)
The Time Axis
(1965)
The Creature From Beyond Infinity
(1968)
The Mask Of Circe
(1971)
Collections
Dr. Cyclops
(1967)
Elak Of Atlantis
(1985)
Prince Raynor
(1987)
Henry Kuttner (1915 – 1958)
Henry Kuttner was born in Los Angeles, in 1915. As a young man he worked for the literary agency of his uncle, Laurence D’Orsay, before selling his first story, ‘The Graveyard Rats’, to
Weird Tales
in early 1936. In 1940 Kuttner married fellow writer C. L. Moore, whom he met through the ‘Lovecraft Circle’”, a group of writers and fans who corresponded with H. P. Lovecraft. During the Second World War, they were regular contributors to John W. Campbell’s
Astounding Science-Fiction
, and collaborated for most of the 40’s and 50’s, publishing primarily under the pseudonyms Lewis Padgett and Lawrence O’Donnell. In 1950 he began studying at the University of Southern California, graduating in 1954. He was working towards his masters degree but died of a heart attack in 1958, before it was completed.
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © Henry Kuttner 2007
All rights reserved.
The Proprietor hereby asserts the right of Henry Kuttner to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
