Craike reached the steps to the rock of the offerings. The glow of the witch lights here was pale, and the ledge below dark. He crept down, one arrow held firmly in his hand.
Here the sense of oppression was a hundredfold worse, and he moved as one wading through a flood which entrapped limbs and brain. Blind, he went to all fours, feeling his way to the river.
He set the arrow between his teeth in a bite which indented its shaft. A knife would have been far better, but he had no time to beg Jorik’s. He slipped over, shivering as the chill water took him. Then he swam under the arch.
It was comparatively easy to reach the shingle where the dugout of the Black Hoods had turned over. As he made his way to the shore he brushed against water-soaked cloth and realized he shared this scrap of gravel with the dead. Then, arrow still between his teeth, Craike climbed up behind the Black Hoods’ position.
9
THE thorn hedge cloaked the rise above him. But he concentrated on the breaking of that illusion, wading on through a mass of thorns, intact to his eyes, thin air at his passing. Then he was behind the Black Hoods. Takya stood, a black and white figure on the wall above, beside the illusion Craike.
Now!
The illusion Craike swelled a little more than life size, while his creator gathered his feet under him, preparatory to attack. The Craike on the wall altered—anything to hold the attention of Tousuth for a crucial second or two. Monster grew from man, wings, horns, curved tusks, all embellishments Craike’s imagination could add. He heard shouts from the tower.
But with the arrow as a dagger in his hand, he sprang, allowing himself in that moment to see only, to think only of a point on Tousuth’s back.
The head drove in and in, and Tousuth went down on his knees, clutching at his chest, coughing. While Craike, with a savagery he had not known he possessed, leaned ont he shaft to drive it deeper.
Fingers hooked about Craike’s throat, cutting off air, dragging him back. He was pulled from Tousuth, loosing his hold on the arrow shaft to tear at the hands denying him breath. There was a red fog which even the witch lights could not pierce and the roaring in his head was far louder than the shouts from the tower.
Then he was flat on the ground, still moving feebly. But the hands were gone from his throat, and he gasped in air. Around him circled balls of fire, dripping, twirling, he closed his eyes against their glare.
“Lord—Lord!”
The hail reached him only faintly. Hands pulled at him, and he tried to resist. But when he opened his eyes it was to see Jorik’s brown face. Jorik was at the tower—how had Craike returned there? Surely he HAD attacked Tousuth? Or was it all illusion?
“He is not dead.”
Whether or not that was said to him, Craike did not know. But his fingers were at his throat and he winced from his own touch. Then an arm came under his shoulders, lifting him, and he had a dizzy moment until earth and gray sky settled into their proper places.
Takya was there, with Nickus and Zackuth hovering in the background of black jerkined guardsmen who stared back at her sullenly over the bodies of the dead. For they were all dead—the Hooded Ones. There was Tousuth, his head in the sand. And his fellows crumpled beside him.
The witch girl chanted, and in her hands was a cat’s cradle of black strands. The men who followed Tousuth cringed, and their fear was a cloud Craike could see. He grabbed at Jorik, won to his feet, and tried to hail Takya. But not even a croak came from his tortured throat. So he flung himself at her, one hand out like a sword blade to slash. It fell across that wicked net of hair, breaking it, and went to close upon Takya’s wrist in a crushing grip.
“Enough!” He could get out that command mind to mind.
She drew in upon herself as a cat crouches for a spring, and spat, her eyes green with feral lusting fire. But he had an answer to that, read it in her own spark of fear at his touch. His hands twined in her hair.
“They are men,” he pulled those black strands to emphasize his words, “they only obeyed orders. We have a quarrel with their masters, but not with them!”
“They hunted, and now they shall be hunted!”
“I have been hunted, as have you, witch woman. And while I live there shall be no more such hunts—whether I am hound or quarry.”
“While you live—” her menace was ready.
Suddenly Craike forced out a hoarse croak meant for laughter. “You, yourself, Takya, have put the arrow to this bow cord!”
He kept one hand tangled in her hair. But with the other he snatched from her belt the knife she had borrowed from Nickus and not returned. She screamed, beat against him with her fists, tried to bite. He mastered her roughly, not loosing his grip on that black silk. And then in sweeps of that well-whetted blade he did what the Black Hoods had failed in doing, he sawed through those lengths.
“I am leaving you no weapons, Takya. You shall not rule here as you have thought to do—” The exultation he had known when he had won his first victory against the Black Hoods was returning a hundredfold. “For a while I shall pull those pretty claws of yours!” He wondered briefly how long it would take her hair to regrow. At least they would have a breathing spell before her powers returned.
Then, his arm still prisoning her shoulders, the mass of her hair streaming free from his left hand, he turned to face the guardsmen.
“Tell them to go,” he thought, “taking their dead with them.”
“You will go, taking these with you,” she repeated aloud, stony calm.
One of the men dropped to his knees by Tousuth’s body, then abased himself before Craike.
“We are your hounds, Master.”
Craike found his voice at last. “You are no man’s hounds—for you are a man. Get you gone to Sampur and tell them that the power is no longer to make hind nor hound. If there are those who wish to share the fate of Tousuth, perhaps when they look upon him as dead they will think more of it.”
“Lord, do you come also to Sampur to rule?” the other asked timidly.
Craike laughed. “Not until I have established my lordship elsewhere. Get you back to Sampur and trouble us no more.”
He turned his back on the guardsmen and, drawing the silent Takya, still within the circle of his arm, with him, started back to the tower. The bowmen remained behind, and Craike and the girl were alone as they reached the upper level. He paused then and looked down into her set, expressionless face.
“What shall I do with you?”
“You have shamed me and taken my power from me. What does a warrior do with a female slave?” She formed a stark mind picture, hurling it at him as she had hurled the stone on the mesa.
With his left hand he whipped her hair across her face, smarting under that taunt.
“I have taken no slave, nor any woman in that fashion, nor shall I. Go your way, Takya, and fight me again if you wish when your hair has grown.”
She studied him, and her astonishment was plain. Then she laughed and clutched at the hair, tearing it free from his grasp, bundling it into the front of her single garment.
“So be it, Ka-rak. It is war between us. But I am not departing hence yet a while.” She broke away, and he could hear the scuff of her feet on the steps as she climbed to her own chamber in the tower.
“They are on their way, Lord, and they will keep to it.” Jorik came up. He stretched. “It was a battle not altogether to my liking. For the honest giving of blows from one’s hand is better than all this magic, potent as it is.”
Craike sat down beside the fire. He could not have agreed more heartily with any suggestion. Now that it was over he felt drained of energy.
“I do not believe they will return,” he wheezed hoarsely, very conscious of his bruised throat.
Nickus chuckled, and Zackuth barked his own laughter.
“Seeing how you handled the Lady, Lord, they want nothing more than to be out of your grasp and that as speedily as possible. Nor, when those of Sampur see what they bring with them, do I t
hink we shall be sought out by others bearing drawn swords. Now,” Jorik slapped his fat middle, “I could do with meat in my belly. And you, Lord, have taken such handling as needs good food to counter.”
There was no mention of Takya, nor did any go to summon her when the meat was roasted. And Craike was content to have it so. He was too tired for any more heroics.
Nickus hummed a soft tune as he rubbed down his unstrung bow before wrapping it away from the river damp. And Craike was aware that the younger man glanced at him slyly when he thought the Esper’s attention elsewhere. Jorik, too, appeared highly amused at some private thoughts, and he had fallen to beating time with one finger to Nickus’ tune. Craike shifted uncomfortably. He was an actor who had forgotten his lines, a novice required to make a ritual move he did not understand. What they wanted of him he could not guess, for he was too tired to mind touch. He only wanted sleep, and that he sought as soon as he painfully swallowed his last bite. But he heard through semistupor a surprised exclamation from Nickus.
“He goes not to seek her—to take her!”
Jorik’s answer held something of approval in it. “To master such as the Lady Takya he will need full strength of power and limb. His is the wisest way, not to gulp the fruits of battle before the dust of the last charge is laid. She is his by shearing, but she is no meek ewe to come readily under any man’s hand.”
Takya did not appear the next day, nor the next. And Craike made no move to climb to her. His companions elaborately did not notice her absence as they worked together, setting in place fallen stones, bringing the tower into a better state of repair, or killing deer to smoke the meat. For as Jorki pointed out:
“Soon comes the season of cold. We must build us a snug place and have food under our hands before then.” He broke off and gazed thoughtfully down stream. “This is also the fair time when countrymen bring their wares to market. There are traders in Sampur. We could offer our hides, even though they be newly fleshed, for salt and grain. And a bow—this Kaluf of whom you have spoken, would he not give a good price for a bow?”
Craike raised an eyebrow. “Sampur? But they have little cause to welcome us in Sampur.”
“You and the Lady Takya, Lord, they might take arms against in fear. But if Zackuth and I went in the guise of wandering hunters—and Zackuth is of the Children of Noe, he could trade privately with his kin. We must have supplies, Lord, before the coming of the cold, and this is too fine a fortress to abandon.”
So it was decided that Jorik and Zackuth were to try their luck with the traders. Nickus went to hunt, wreaking havoc among the flocks of migrating fowl, and Craike held the tower alone.
As he turned from seeing them away, he sighted the owl wheel out from the window slit of the upper chamber, its mournful cry sounding loud. On sudden impulse he went inside to climb the stair. There had been enough of her sulking. He sent that thought before him as an order. She did not reply. Craike’s heart beat faster. Was—had she gone? The rough outer wall, was it possible to climb down that?
He flung himself up the last few steps and burst into the room. She was standing there, her shorn head high as if she and not he had been the victor. When he saw her Craike stopped. Then he moved again, faster than he had climbed those stairs. For in that moment the customs of this world were clear, he knew what he must do, what he wanted to do. If this revelation was some spell of Takya’s he did not care.
Later he was aroused by the caress of silk on his body, felt her cool fingers as he had felt them drawing the poison from his wounds. It was a black belt, and she was making fast about him, murmuring words softly as she interwove strand with strand about his waist until there was no beginning nor end to be detected.
“My chain on you, man of power.” Her eyes slanted down at him.
He buried both his hands in the ragged crop of hair from which those threads had been severed and so held her quiet for his kiss.
“My seal upon you, witch.”
“What Tousuth would have done, you have accomplished for him,” she observed pensively when he had given her a measure of freedom once again. “Only through you may I now use my power.”
“Which is perhaps well for this land and those who dwell in it,” he laughed. “We are now tied to a common destiny, my lady of river towers.”
She sat up running her hands through her hair with some of her old caress.
“It will grow again,” he consoled.
“To no purpose, except to pleasure my vanity. Yes, we are tied together. But you do not regret it, Ka-rak—”
“Neither do you, witch.” There was no longer any barrier between their minds, as there was none between their bodies. “What destiny will you now spin for the two of us?”
“A great one. Tousuth knew my power-to-come. I would now realize it.” Her chin went up. “And you with me, Ka-rak. By this,” her hand rested lightly on the belt.
“Doubtless you will set us up as rulers over Sampur?” he said lazily.
“Sampur!” she sniffed. “This world is wide—” Her arms went out as if to encircle all which lay beyond the tower walls.
Craike drew her back to him jealously. “For that there is more than time enough. This is an hour for something else, even in a warlock’s world.”
Mousetrap
REMEMBER that old adage about the man who built a better mousetrap and then could hardly cope with the business which beat a state highway to his door? I saw that happen once—on Mars.
Sam Levatts was politely introduced—for local color—by the tourist guides as a “desert spider.” “Drunken bum” would have been the more exact term. He prospected over and through the dry lands out of Terraport and brought in Star Stones, Gormel ore, and like knickknacks to keep him sodden and mostly content. In his highly scented stupors he dreamed dreams and saw visions. At least his muttered description of the “lovely lady” was taken to be a vision, since there are no ladies in the Terraport dives he frequented and the females met there are far from lovely.
But Sam continued a peaceful dreamer until he met Len Collins and Operation Mousetrap began.
Every dumb tourist who steps into a scenic sandmobile at Terraport has heard of the “sand monsters.” Those which still remain intact are now all the property of the tourist bureaus. And, brother, they’re guarded as if they were a part of that cache of Martian royal jewels Black Spragg stumbled on twenty years ago. Because the monsters, which can withstand the dust storms, the extremes of desert cold and heat, crumble away if so much as a human fingertip is poked into their ribs.
Nowadays you are allowed to get within about twenty feet of the “Spider Man” or the “Armed Frog” and that’s all. Try to edge a little closer and you’ll get a shock that’ll lay you flat on your back with your toes pointing Earthwards.
And, ever since the first monster went drifting off as a puff of dust under someone’s hands, the museums back home have been adding to the cash award waiting for the fellow who can cement them for transportation. By the time Len Collins met Sam that award could be quoted in stellar figures.
Of course, all the bright boys in the glue, spray and plastic business had been taking a crack at the problem for years. The frustrating answer being that when they stepped out of the rocket over here, all steamed up about the stickability of their new product, they had nothing to prove it on. Not one of the known monsters was available for testing purposes. Every one is insured, guarded, and under the personal protection of the Space Marines.
But Len Collins had no intention of trying to reach one of these treasures. Instead he drifted into Sam’s favorite lapping ground and set them up for Levatts—three times in succession. At the end of half an hour Sam thought he had discovered the buddy of his heart. And on the fifth round he spilled his wild tale about the lovely lady who lived in the shelter of two red rocks—far away—a vague wave of the hand suggesting the general direction.
Len straightway became a lover of beauty panting to behold this supreme treat. And he
stuck to Sam that night closer than a Moonman to his oxy-supply. The next morning they both disappeared from Terraport in a private sandmobile hired by Len.
Two weeks later Collins slunk into town again and booked passage back to New York. He clung to the port hotel, never sticking his head out of the door until it was time to scuttle to the rocket.
Sam showed up in the Flame Bird four nights later. He had a nasty sand burn down his jaw and he could hardly keep his feet for lack of sleep. He was also—for the first time in Martian history—cold and deadly sober. And he sat there all evening drinking nothing stronger than Sparkling Canal Water. Thereby shocking some kindred souls half out of their wits.
What TV guy doesn’t smell a story in a quick change like that? I’d been running the dives every night for a week—trying to pick up some local color for our 6 o’clock casting. And the most exciting and promising thing I had come across so far was Sam’s sudden change of beverage. Strictly off the record—we cater to the family and tourist public mostly—I started to do a little picking and prying. Sam answered most of my feelers with grunts.
Then I hit pay dirt with the casual mention that the Three Planets Travel crowd had picked up another shocked cement dealer near their pet monster, “The Ant King.” Sam rolled a mouthful of the Sparkling Water around his tongue, swallowed with a face to frighten all monsters, and asked a question of his own.
“Where do these here science guys think all the monsters come from?”
I shrugged. “No explanation that holds water. They can’t examine them closely without destroying them. That’s one reason for the big award awaiting any guy who can glue them together so they’ll stand handling.”
Sam pulled something from under the pocket flap of his spacealls. It was a picture, snapped in none too good a light, but clear enough.