Slave of Sarma

Chapter Seventeen

Often, in those interminable days of trekking across the desert, flayed by the sun in daylight, frozen at night when they camped without shelter, Blade envied the man he meant to kill.

His doppelganger, the Russian agent, was living a life of luxury at the court of El Kal, King of all the Moghs. More than that - the double was now Vizier of the Kingdom, in a position of power and prestige, and was anxiously searching for his twin brother. For Blade!

The Princess Canda - for Blade was now convinced that she was indeed a Princess - had imparted this information. Not at first. But at a time and in a place of her own choosing.

As night descended Blade set about building the usual cairn of stones to catch water. It was all they had, all that kept them alive, and stemmed from a resourcefulness the big adventurer had not known he possessed. During the hot, sun blasted days he noted that the wind always blew inland from the Purple Sea. It was laden with moisture. The second night, with all of them raging with thirst, Blade built a high cairn of relatively cool stones dug out of the sand with his sword. Within half an hour moisture was collecting on the stones and trickling to form a tiny pool. Blade monitored the drinking, again with his sword, and filled a small wine bottle that the wretch Chephron had happened to have attached to his belt when the Pphira broke her back on a reef and sank.

After completing the cairn Blade stood gazing at the snow tipped mountains on the far horizon. They seemed no nearer than they had at the beginning of the march. Blade, had he not known better, would have sworn that the mountains retreated stealthily during the night.

Beyond the mountains, if ever they reached them, lay the Land of the Moghs and a great city where El Kal ruled. So said Canda, who claimed to be only daughter to El Kal.

There was an oasis, said Canda, not far from a pass leading through the mountains. When they reached the oasis - a matter on which Blade was not at the moment sanguine - a signal would be sent and a party would come to greet them. Blade was not especially looking forward to this, as irksome, uncomfortable and dangerous as his present plight was. His double at the moment held all the good cards. He was established and powerful. Had all the advantages. Blade had a pair of leather breeches, fast wearing out in the crotch, and his sword.

He had also been having pains in his head again. And wondered - was the Russian agent also having them?

"I am hungry, Captain. Why do you stand and dream at the mountains when you should be providing food?"

It was the Princess Canda. Naked to the waist, with a twist of linen about her loins, sunburned and tousled and as filthy as any of them, yet utterly lovely. Her jet dark hair fell to her waist and she had caught it back with a thong. She had a perfectly oval face in which gray eyes were set wide. Smoky eyes with glints of gold in them. She was nearly as tall as Blade, slim and regal, with pink budded breasts that, for all their generous size, were taut and with no hint of sagging.

Blade regarded her for a moment without speaking. He glanced to where Zeena lay being ministered to by the misshapen Chephron. Zeena was no better. He knew in his heart that her mind had gone forever. Yet she had been as lovely, nearly as beautiful, as this girl before him. Now - for Zeena still did not recognize Blade - her gentian eyes were hollow and shadow-laden and her body fast withering into gauntness.

Canda made a stamping motion with one shapely bare foot. "I am still hungry, Blade."

He drew his sword and she stepped back in mock alarm. Her smile had a teasing sweetness. "You would not dare! Remember how much rests with me when we come at last to the oasis. The people know me. You, and these others, they will fall upon and slay."

It was likely the truth and Blade nodded. "I am going to kill our dinner, Canda. Nothing more. I do not attack helpless women."

Again her odd smile. "I am not so sure, Captain Blade. I am not sure about anything with you. There - there are too many of you for my comfort!"

He ignored her and turned away. She had been hinting at something ever since they left the coast In her own time she would get to it.

Blade left them and, sword in hand, went in search of snakes. If it had nothing else, the Burning Land had snakes in plenty. They were non-poisonous, or so Canda said, and they came out at night. A hundred were to be found in any shallow ravine.

He killed a dozen snakes in as many minutes and took them back for Chephron and Pelops to skin and bone and prepare them for dinner. Cut into bite size and taken with what little water there was, they would furnish strength for another day of marching. Maybe you gagged a little, Blade admitted, but you got them down. Funny what a man could eat when he was starving.

He went back to the cairn. Pelops was there waiting for the first trickle of condensation to form. The little man had lost weight he could not afford, the fuzz on his face and long head was long and dirty, and he had lost his armor and sword in the sea. He looked, Blade thought, to be on his last legs. Yet there was a resilience about the man that continually amazed Blade. And his habits did not change. Even now, looking like a mistreated scarecrow and with only a scrap of leather twisted about his privates, Pelops had not lost his tendency to lecture.

"It is my thought," said the little teacher now, "that we should abandon Zeena. She delays us, sire, and she will get no better. And it sickens me to watch her, for I remember her from better days when she was a child and I taught her in the palace."

Blade stared hard at him. He did not, could not, blame the man for what he was saying. Pelops was Sarmaian and could not help what he was.

"I remember Zeena," said Blade, "from the time of our first meeting. When I took her to save your life, Pelops. When I married her in your Sarmaian law. We will not abandon her. There are graves enough behind us."

There had been nine in the party starting inland. Five were left. Blade, Pelops, Chephron and the two women. The dead men had all been slaves too weak and emaciated to stand the trek. Of the women taken from the pirate craft none had been saved but Zeena and the Princess Canda. Of Ixion Blade knew nothing at all; Pphira had become separated from the unireme long before she struck the reef and went down in a churning welter of fifty foot waves. Blade had barely made it ashore with the women, with the Princess Canda doing her share, and Pelops, strange irony, owed his life to the former mine slave, Chephron.

Pelops stared at a first small trickle of water tracing down the cairn. "I wonder at times, sire, if you are not a man of magic. Such as lived in the old times in Sarma. To find water like this, out of nowhere!"

"A simple matter of physics."

"I do not know the word, sire. But let me tell you - "

Blade laughed in spite of himself. "You know enough words, little warrior. Too many. Spare me them. Speak only of what I wish to know - and that is about this Princess Canda. What of her, really? Is there a land of Mogh? And such people as the Moghs? Could there be such as El Kal, whom she calls her father, and who rules this land? What do you think of all these tales?"

While Pelops pondered, chin in hand, Blade watched Chephron caring tenderly for Zeena. Feeding her. The man's leg sores were healing somewhat. More proof, Blade thought, that the meta was really pitchblende. And that in Sarma there were mountain ranges of the stuff. Uranium.

Lord L and J would just have to take his word for it when Blade got back to H Dimension. He had lost the chunk of raw meta, along with the log he had started, when the Pphira went down.

Pelops said: "I think she speaks the truth, sire Blade. I have, er, had some converse with her these days. As you may know?"

"I know," Blade said dryly. "She speaks more to you than to me. What of, little man?"

Pelops looked startled. "Oh, sire, of nothing much. She is only a woman after all. She lacks company and when you stalk ahead, aloof and forbidding, and Chephron nurses Zeena along, the Princess falls back to talk to me. It is nothing."

Slowly, calmly, Blade put his great hand about Pelop's throat and gave it a slight pressure. "Do not lie to me, little one. Of what does the lady speak?"

Pelops began to tremble but his eyes met those of Blade. "Yes, sire. I did lie. For a moment I was a fool. But I was, I am, frightened again. She, Canda, said that if I told you what passed between us she would have me tortured when we come to Mogh."

Blade released him. "She may yet. But you are not in Mogh - you are here with me. And I will not torture you. I will merely beat you. So talk, and tell me the truth."

Pelops, rubbing his throat, explained that the lady spoke only of Blade. She asked questions. Always questions. No end of questions. She wished to know everything about Richard Blade. And about the Princess Zeena.

Blade heard him out. "So you think she really is a Princess? There is a Mogh and her father is El Kal?" Blade pointed to the unreachable mountains over which floated a yellow paring of moon. "And you think there is an oasis there - a place of water and grass and trees?"

"I think all those things, sire. For I have heard of the Moghs before. Not much, and perhaps only rumors and gossip, but I have heard. It is whispered that once, long ago, a Mogh ruler came to Sarma and lay with our Queen. With Pphira. He did not stay in Sarma. This was in the first days of Pphira's rule, just after she had poisoned her mother, and I happen to know another scholar, very ancient now, who - "

Pelops was off on a long rambling tale. Blade listened with slight amusement and half an ear. There was, he supposed, an inevitability about the matter. This El Kal, whom he might one day meet, must be the father of the late Equebus.

That little bit of information, Blade thought grimly, I will keep to myself.

Later it grew bitter cold, as ever, and Blade could not sleep. Not that the cold bothered him so much, but that his mind was uneasy about the future. He was in a defensive and, almost, hopeless position. His Russian counterpart had established himself in Mogh, even as Blade had managed to secure himself in Sarma, and surely the first order of business would be to kill Blade.

He got up, cast a glance at the others - Chephron had taken to sleeping with Zeena, enfolding her in his scrawny arms to give her as much of his body warmth as possible - and strolled out into the desert moonlight. It was a stark, sere, moonscape-like scene. Cold. Bitter and brooding. By now the snakes had vanished. Blade sat on a rock and pondered the future, his future, should he have one.

His double would be calling the shots. At least in the beginning. That much was certain. Blade had only his sword. Not much use against a Vizier of Mogh. Blade smiled coldly. The man had wasted no time in consolidating his position. Just as Blade had not. And his double had begun a search for him. Just as Blade had.

It occurred to Blade that they must be thinking very much alike. They were, after all, twins in everything but blood. Lord Leighton's words? Monozygotic twins?

The thing to do was to put himself in the other chap's place, probe the Russian's persona and act as if he were in the other's stead. If he wanted to kill Blade.

And stay out of trouble doing it.

He had not gotten very far along with it when he heard her step and saw the moon shadow fall athwart his rock. The Princess Canda.

I am very cold, Captain Blade."

She looked cold. Her delicious breasts were goose pimpled.

Blade said, "We are all cold, Princess. What of it? What would you have me do?"

"Do? Are you a fool then? Ixok."

She pointed to where Chephron was sleeping with the mad Zeena in his arms.

"Even a miserable wretch like that knows what to do. Knows how to shelter the one with no mind."

Blade stood up. "Is that what you want, Canda? Shelter?"

She moved toward him. "The wind is cold. I do want shelter - and perhaps other things as well. And you are a fool, and insulting as well. I have never had to ask before."

The humid musky smell of her came strong in his nostrils. Blade was ready for love, more than ready, and smiled at the thought that his worn breeches might not bear the strain.

Canda saw his smile. "You laugh at me, Captain?"

"At myself, Princess. You see?" He indicated his front, where a massive protuberance strained against the rotten leather. She stared. At that moment the leather parted with a ripping sound.

Canda stood staring at him for a moment She shivered. "I am not so cold as I was."

"Nor I, Princess."

They did not kiss. If she knew of tenderness she did not evoke it, or give it, or seem to want it. She refused to lie on the cold stony earth and so Bade turned her and pressed her back against the big rock. She gasped and grabbed at his ear with her teeth when he entered, but the entry was easy enough and Blade knew he was having no virgin this night.

Canda fell quickly into a panting rhythm of her own, not bothering to match her pace to Blade's thrusts. She wound her arms about his neck and little by little he bore more of her weight as gradually her long legs came up and entwined his waist and he was locked solidly and deeply into her flesh.

When he knew she desired, and could go, for a long time Blade began to pace himself. Holding back. Canda fell into frenzy several times, biting and clawing at him, raking his back and shoulders with her nails, before she went into her one great and grand and final surge. She let out a trembling cry to the cold moon. Blade, deadly workman, thrust her soft buttocks back against the rock and plunged impossibly deeper each time until he came to his ending as well. His groans and her sighs made a single sound.

When he stepped back away from the rock, she still locked around his big body, riding him face to face, she tossed her hair back and gave him that same strange smile.

"I cannot decide," she said.

Blade, going limp in her, that rigid flesh now become a worm and sliding out moistly, stared down at her in surprise. She had suddenly become heavy.

"Decide what?"

"Which of you is best. Which gives me the greatest pleasure. You or your twin."

So the Russian had been before him. With a pang that was more concern for his life than any jealousy, Blade disengaged and lifted her lightly to the ground. He made himself smile, forced an exudation of confidence that he did not in the slightest feel.

"Suppose you tell me of this, my Princess. I am most interested."

Her teeth flashed in the moonlight. "I thought you would be, Captain. And I am interested in you. Your man Pelops has told me much - but not all I would know. I have waited until the proper time to speak - when we are within five days' march of the oasis - and now it is time. What would you know of your brother, Captain?"

"Everything. More than I know now, which is very little."

"Strange. Those are his very words when he heard that there lived in Sarma a man that must be his brother. His twin. He seeks desperately for you, Captain."

No doubt, Blade thought. Desperately.

Something pinged in his mind. "How came my brother to know that I lived?"

"A rider came. A messenger from the Council of Five in Sarma. I forget his name, or never knew it, but he claimed to be sent by the priests to see if your twin lived."

Kreed's fine hand. Checking him out. Did Kreed still live? Had he made it to shore? Blade did not know, or care. If Pphira had any sense she would get rid of the old priest one way or the other.

Blade put his arm about her. "You and I," he said softly, "had better have a long talk. But first tell me truly - was not I, just now, better than my brother. Did I not pleasure you more?"

Canda frowned. "It is very difficult to tell about such things, Captain."

Blade supposed it was.