Читать книгу In the Green Star's Glow - Lin Carter - Страница 6

As the sky craft which Ralidux had stolen from the treasure-vaults of the Ancient Ones drifted weightlessly across the roof of Prince Andar’s besieged palace-citadel, Niamh—the Phaolonese princess whom I had come to love under the name of Shann of Kamadhong during my blindness, when we were castaways together on the desert isle of Narjix in the Komarian Sea—had no sooner freed herself from one attacker than a second thrust himself upon her.

The black superman from the Flying City, Ralidux, driven mad by his uncontrollable lust for Arjala the Living Goddess, had carried off Niamh from our desert isle under the mistaken assumption that she was none other than the superb young woman whom he desired above all else. Discovering his error, he had planned to hurl her slim body over the side of the flying vessel. But Niamh, tearing free of her bonds, and plucking from its secret sheath amid the tattered remnants of her garments, that slender, sacred knife which is, to every woman of the Laonese race, the final defense of her chastity, turned upon her kidnapper.

They fought together, there in the cockpit of the sky craft, as it drifted idly over the rooftops of Komar. At length my beloved princess succeeded in striking home: like the fang of a striking cobra, the slim bright blade sunk to its hilt in the heart of the Black Immortal and he toppled from the cockpit to fall to the rooftop far below.

Wrenching her blade from the heart of Ralidux in the instant of his fall, Niamh turned to seize control of the floating air vessel. But in the same moment of time a strange man with azure skin and subtle, crafty eyes sprang into the cockpit from the stony limbs of the colossal statue which loomed atop the palace roof.

Niamh stared at him dazedly. They had never so much as laid eyes on each other before, had Delgan of the Isles and the Princess of Phaolon, but this mattered little. The former Warlord of the Blue Barbarians had seized upon this trick of fortune to make his escape, and would permit no adolescent girl to deter him in his flight.

In one hand he bore that deadly crystal rod in which captive lightnings flickered—the zoukar, or death-flash—which Zarqa and Janchan and I had borne off long ago in our escape from the doomed and dying Pylon of the science magician, Sarchimus the Wise.

Leveling the powerful weapon at the wide-eyed girl—who crouched the length of the cockpit away, a slim, now gory, blade clenched in one small but capable fist—the traitorous Delgan was about to direct the furious ray of the crystal weapon against this unknown girl who stood in the way of his escape.

But then the bidding of caution made him stay his hand. The terrific power of the zoukar was a subject with which he was not completely familiar. To loose its frightful energies within the narrow confines of the cabin might be to damage the sky craft beyond all hopes of repair.

Therefore, with a swift motion, he thrust the crystal weapon into his girdle, and, with a tigerlike bound, flung himself upon the young girl who opposed him.

So swiftly did the mysterious blue man leap into the cabin—and so unexpectedly did he hurl himself upon her—that Niamh was taken by surprise. Suddenly, a hand like an iron vise clamped itself about her wrist, while the blue man flung his other arm about her waist, lifting her from the floor of the cabin. While she sought to plunge her slim blade into his heart, he strove to drag her to the edge of the cockpit and fling the hapless girl over the side.

In the fury of their combat, neither Niamh nor her assailant noticed Zorak the Bowman as he scaled the stony limbs of the colossus. He flung himself across space in an effort to reach the sky-ship before it floated away from the palace roof for a rescue attempt to succeed.

The outstretched fingers of the stalwart Tharkoonian brushed the tail-assembly of the flying craft . . . slipped, then clung. A moment later, the flying craft bore him away, out over the streets of the city. Then his dangling booted heels swung giddily above the tranquil immensity of the inland sea. And this was the last of the flying craft which I, Karn, saw as the Green Star rose up over the horizon to flood the world of the great trees with its emerald light.

Delgan had not dreamed that he would encounter any difficulty in overcoming the slight figure of the adolescent girl. For, although by no means as robust or as burly as were most of the Blue Barbarians, he was a full-grown man in his prime and possessed of a man’s strength.

But the supple girl twisted lithely in his crushing grip, as agile as a writhing serpent. The girl fought furiously against the blue man as he struggled to thrust her over the side. Delgan soon discovered he had taken on a young wildcat.

She raked the sharp nails of one hand down the side of his face, slashing his cheek from eye-corner to chin. Blood spurted from his torn flesh; with a curse, he jerked his head back, fearing that with the next swipe of her vicious nails she might blind him.

Then a small but firm knee thudded into the pit of his stomach with staggering force. With a whoosh the air was driven out of his lungs as Niamh drove one sharp elbow into his ribs. Bent double, clutching at his belly, face streaming with blood, Delgan stumbled in retreat until he was backed against the control panel itself. Blinking open his eyes, which had been squeezed shut with pain, he saw the sunlight of the Green Star flash dazzlingly from the small, glittering blade of the girl’s knife.

The gleam of the naked metal was no less deadly than the wrathful fires that burned fiercely in the girl’s narrowed eyes.

Pampered child of the jewelbox cities though she was, Niamh of Phaolon fought like a tigress when she had to.

Facing her glittering blade, Delgan’s bravery ebbed. Cunning and unscrupulous, it was ever his way to win with words or guile rather than to resort to physical action, which, in his warped view, was the way of the brute. The wily and devious Delgan had long ago discovered that he would trick and entangle those he sought to use in a web of words. So he tried it now, rather than trust his precious hide to the stinging kiss of that small, chaste blade.

“Would you slay me, then, witch-girl?” he panted. “I am no enemy of yours! Think: have ever we met, child? If not, then how could we be foes?”

“It was no friend who tried to thrust me over the side, stranger!” spat Niamh, the keen knife unswerving in her grip.

Delgan forced a bewildered laugh.

“But you have taken everything wrong, child! I sprang aboard this flying craft to aid you in piloting it to the palace roof, for I alone know the trick of the controls. And I leaped forward to steady you, for fear that the impact of my leap might toss you from your feet and over the side. Then, and, I’m afraid, without even giving me a moment to speak and to identify myself, you brought that wicked small knife into action. Even then, although attacked without warning, I was not provoked, but kindly thought to remove the weapon from you, lest in your hysteria you do yourself an injury. . . .”

The blue man’s words were smoothly plausible, and the bewildered, almost hurt tones with which he uttered them came very dose to disarming Niamh’s suspicions. But the girl was no fool and remembered her own precise reactions, despite the sly-tongued villain’s attempt to befuddle her.

“If you are my friend, first toss that curious crystal weapon over the side,” she said keenly. Then, with a small, ironic smile, she added: “For, if we are friends, we need no weapons, now, do we?”

He nodded in a friendly fashion. “Certainly I will do so, to reassure you, mistress. But the crystal rod is no weapon; it is an instrument of the Ancients which sheds light in darkness. At any rate, I will surely do as you wish . . . but first, I think it not too much for me to ask of you a similar token in gesture of our friendship. Throw away that knife of yours, and I will do as you bid.”

Niamh looked at him strangely.

“Do you not know that every woman of my race bears ever on her person the sacred knife that is called the ‘Defender of Chastity’?” she murmured, puzzledly. “Or are you some savage outlander, unfamiliar with the code of civilization?”

Delgan, who was indeed just such a savage, albeit one who had rigorously schooled himself in the ways of the more civilized races of his world, bit his lip in silent fury at the slip. But not so much as a muscle twitched in his face to reveal his inward feelings.

“Of course, of course! I had forgotten!” he said, with an apologetic laugh. “Well, then, my girl, sheathe that holy knife of yours, or put it away . . . a naked blade is not drawn between comrades, you know!”

So cleverly devised was the verbal trap he had woven about her, that Niamh—although her every impulse screamed to retain the blade for instant use, if threatened—could not conjure up a good reason for not putting away the little knife. Keeping a wary eye on the smiling, seemingly friendly man, she reinserted the blade in its secret sheath, which was sewn in the lining of the garment wound about her breasts. When she had done so, she half expected the strange blue-skinned man to hurl himself upon her. But he did not.

“There we are, then; a truce between us?” he suggested genially.

“Perhaps,” she said tentatively. “But you have not yet tossed overside the crystal rod you wear.”

“This?” he said, smiling, drawing the death-flash from his girdle. “But it is too rare and precious to throw away, this artifact of the Ancients.” Then the deadly crystal rod was pointed unswervingly at her heart.

“Do not move or reach for that wicked little knife of yours,” he said softly. “But do exactly as I say. The deathly fires of lightning sleep in this rod, easy to awake, and it would be a pity to snuff out so young a life, to sear and shrivel so delectable a soft young body.”

Niamh crimsoned and bit her lip at the mockery in his eyes, but she offered no resistance.

Then he reached for her.