The City Outside the World

21. Sentence of Death

The officer in charge of the cells was named Aoth. Ryker got to know him a bit. He was gruff but courteous, offering his prisoner no insult, but treating him rather gingerly. Ryker got the idea that the fellow was somewhat in awe of Ryker, curious as to his antecedents—he was obviously not Martian but too polite to ask questions.

He brought Ryker food and drink. The wine was of a superb vintage, heady and effervescent, a pale golden fluid which looked and tasted not unlike champagne. It had been fifteen years since Ryker had last enjoyed a goblet of champagne, and he sipped the beverage appreciatively, thinking that if this was the sort of fare served up in the jails of Zhiam, being a prisoner here was not going to be all that tough to endure.

The food was similarly delicious—spicy balls of some reddish meal soaked in hot, succulent sauce, and a sort of hot broth filled with crisp tidbits of herbs and vegetables. It all went down as easily as did the golden wine.

Ryker could not help noticing that there was no meat in his meal. Were these descendants of the ancient Martian rebels all vegetarians, or did their religion prohibit them from slaughtering beasts? If the latter was true, then they seemed a bit too tenderhearted to fit his notion of devil worshippers.

While the cuisine would have done credit to the finest gourmet restaurant, the prison cell was just a prison cell. It boasted nothing more elaborate in the way of furniture

than a rough wooden bench and a heap of dry straw. There was a porcelain jug in one corner which looked almost exactly like pictures Ryker had seen of antique chamber pots, and which was apparently here for precisely the same purpose.

And the bars were … bars. It would have taken someone a lot stronger than he was to bend them out of their sockets.

After a while, he dozed off, awakening a time later when guards unlocked the door and entered his cell to bring him forth for judgment. The guards were a hardier lot than Thoh’s retinue, too, like Captain Aoth. Ryker began to guess that his first impression of the Zhiamese was, after all, mistaken. Courtiers and nobles here in Zhiam were about as effete and elegant and dainty of person as courtiers and nobles are commonly supposed to be, he thought. But there were some decent men here in the City, just the same.

He was led out into the open, into a sort of courtyard. Strange glowing flowers shimmered against the dark, luminous and glossy; graceful feather trees spread their soft plumage to the night breeze, and fountains splashed somewhere in the darkness.

Here Ryker was told to step into a light wheeled vehicle for which he had no name. It was too small to be called a carriage, and too capacious to be considered a chariot. But when he saw the thing that was harnessed to draw the wheeled car, he promptly forgot all about the vehicle itself.

Was this the remote, prehistoric ancestor of the slidar! If so, it was improbably beautiful, like some fantastic creature in a fairy tale.

Imagine a six-legged animal all lean and sinewy and graceful as a leopard, but five times as large, and covered with glittering enameled scales like a reptile, and you will have a faint idea of what it looked like. The creature had a long, gracefully arched neck somewhat like a fine horse, but longer. Also horselike, it was restive and spirited, pawing at the stone pave with delicate clawed feet. Its entire slim, beautifully proportioned body was a glittering tapestry of gold and green scales, like cloisonne or rare Oriental inlay work. And when it turned its slim, tapering head to peer back at Ryker, he gasped, for it had the long curved beak of an ibis or a crane, and immense, fathomless eyes like huge gems of dark purple, and a nodding crest of rosy filaments like some griffin or wyvern of fable.

The chariot, or whatever it was, got underway. Rapidly trotting along on its six astounding limbs, the gorgeous beaked reptilian creature glided swiftly out of the courtyard and into a broad boulevard lined with fantastic trees covered with huge blossoms like powder puffs, tintec pastel colors, pink and soft blue and a delicate shade of orange. Dawn was breaking overhead and the sky was s rich scarlet and vermilion and palest gold. The fairy like beauty of the scene made Ryker catch his breath.

At this early hour few were up, and the streets were empty under the blaze of morn. The beaked reptile bore the light chariot down a magnificent avenue lined with palaces or villas such as Ryker had only seen before moldering in decay, bitten deep by the teeth of time. But these were fresh and new and in excellent repair.

Then—and for the first time—did he truly realize in the depths of his heart that he had been transported by some weird, uncanny magic back into the ancient past of immemorial Mars. The sensation was a difficult one to convey. Something of what Ryker felt as he drove down that empty boulevard past splendid edifices of gleaming, fulvous marble in a vehicle drawn by some incredible beast of fable, you or I would feel, were we suddenly and miraculously transported to the Ishtar Gate of Babylon in the days when Nebuchadnezzar reigned, or that holy sacred city at the headwaters of the Nile which Akhnaten the Heretic Pharaoh had built to the glory of his god Aton, or gorgeous Persepolis before the mighty Macedonian conqueror put it to the torch.

And in that moment he knew that, no matter what Zarouk said or the gaunt fanatic, Dmu Dran, believed, these people were no worshippers of Evil and Old Night. Surely, deviltry and black sorcery could not flourish here, in surroundings so lovely, so impossibly gorgeous, that they took his breath away and left him numb and shaken with awe.

Whatever Zhagguaziu—the Fire Devil—actually was, if he was anything at all beyond a mere myth, the folk who worshipped him were not sinful fiends, but a graceful, courteous, beauty-loving people with an immensely advanced civilization and a culture rich with appreciation of the arts and of gracious living. How, then, could the god they worshipped be a demon of evil?

The answer was that he couldn’t.

The hall in which Valarda received him was smaller than he might have expected, and incredibly beautiful.

The floor and walls were covered with glistening ceramic tiles, durable and gleaming as fine porcelain, and ornamented with geometrical arabesques quite unlike the ordinary native decorative arts. If they resembled anything in particular, it was the complex and intricate designs on Islamic tiles from the Middle Ages.

Carpets of sleek fur were scattered about the floor of the large, high-ceilinged room. That they were the hides of hitherto unknown beasts was unquestionable, since fur-bearing mammals were all but extinct on the Mars he knew. Brick-red and carnation and dark bronze were the furs, and to tread upon their softness was like walking on clouds.

Despite the modest proportions of the room—for it was little more than an antechamber to the enormous pillared rotunda wherein Valarda generally held her court—quite a number of personages were crowded therein. This was the largest gathering of the Lost Nation that Ryker had ever seen close up, and he looked about him curiously. One and all were dressed in abbreviated garments which left plenty of naked flesh bare, the only exception to this fashion being old Melandron himself. The sage was robed in soft, clinging stuff which looked like velour.

Some of the younger nobles had the same soft, effete, underdeveloped look to them that he had observed in Lord Thoh’s retinue when it had surprised him at the entrance to the underground road. But many of the older lords were heavier of build, with stronger character in their faces, and the look of competence and virility about them. The women, even the older women, were singularly beautiful.

Even in so lustrous a company, Valarda shone out like a diamond among pebbles. Her shimmering cataract of silken black hair was held in the same openwork coronal of gold filigree she had worn on the parapet. Her tawny limbs, svelte and nearly nude, flashed with priceless gems. Suspended between her shallow, firm breasts an immense, purple jewel blazed like a captive star. It was a rare ziriol, he knew, and its value was incalculable.

This time the face she turned to him was serene, resolute and untroubled. She was in control of her emotions, and the calm emotionlessness of her features, if they masked an inner turmoil of guilt or indecision, revealed no trace of this to the observing eye.

She sat on a low, carven bench of sparkling crystal, and, alone of that company, she was seated. Ryker had suspected her rank to be of the highest, and Thoh’s term for her— “Priestess” it translated to—suggested as much. Now her supremacy among this company was obvious. And Ryker relaxed a little. It never hurts to have a friend on the throne.

Standing near Melandron, Ryker was surprised and relieved to see Herzog. The old scientist had been less seriously injured in his fall through the hidden trapdoor than Ryker had first feared, and from the lively expression on his face and the sprightly manner in which he held himself, he seemed to have made a full recovery.

“Ryker, my boy!” he sang out as the tall Earthling came into the chamber amidst his escort of guards. He wove his way through the throng and came over to grin happily up at the younger man.

“Hey, Doc, you’re all in one piece, eh?” grinned Ryker. “That’s good news! What’s going on here, anyway?”

The old Israeli sobered. “Good news and bad news,” he muttered. “We’re to be judged, my boy, and it don’t look good.”

He nodded to where Lord Thoh stood, accoutered like a peacock in bejewelled finery that would have made Haroun Al-Raschid blush with envy. “That fellow over there is no friend of ours, let me tell you. Seems this place is split into two factions—politics, business as usual, even here!—-and he leads the one that wants to go out and fight against our old friend, Zarouk, and his desert bandits, using the ancient weapons of science magic the ancestors of these people used long ago. Well, sir, the other faction, led by the Lady herself, thinks they better stick to the old laws against bloodshed—”

Ryker drew a breath. “So it is their law, then! I about had it figured that way, from the fact that the Stone Giants never took a life. Wonder if Zarouk knew about the law all the time? It sure would explain how he dared come into Zhiam with such a small force, when for all he knew he would be facing thousands of armed warriors.”

“Yes,” Doc nodded, “and the trouble is, see, Valarda—she’s not only descended from the royal blood of these people, but the chief priestess of the Fire Devil—is holding her sway with quite a bit of difficulty, here. She’s had to compromise, fact is. Had to give in to Thoh on this one point, just to hold her coalition together.”

“What do you mean by that?” demanded Ryker.

Doc looked apologetic, as if he hated to be the bearer of bad news.

“Well … I mean we’re already sentenced to death, both of us,” he admitted. “The only question they have yet to decide is—how.”

22. Down There

That night in his cell, Ryker had a visitor. It was about the last visitor he could have expected, considering the death sentence that had been passed against him and the old Israeli.

He was aroused from his fitful, uneasy slumbers by the clink of metal against metal, and the scrape of sandal leather against gritty stone.

Raising himself up on one elbow, he blinked through the gloom to see two robed and hooded figures at the door. The brilliant light from the crystal lamps which illuminated the corridor outlined their shadowy forms.

“Ryker!” whispered a faint voice. That voice he knew, and to hear again its husky music sent a quiver through his nerves which he could neither suppress nor deny. He got up quietly, so as not to disturb Doc, who lay snoring loudly against the wall, and padded over to the cell door on bare feet.

The taller of the two figures tossed back its hood, and it was Valarda.

“What d’you want?” he grunted. “After what you had to say back there, I figured there’d be nothing else to say—my Lady.”

His voice was heavy with sarcasm, and she winced at the sound of it. Then she raised her face and looked into his eyes, and that which he saw written in her features, the suffering, the sorrow, made him wish he hadn’t spoken so harshly.

“I want to try to make you understand,” she whispered.

“Well, you can try,” he said gruffly. “Go ahead.”

Her face was wan and pale, and there were lines of strain and weariness about her glorious eyes. She stepped closer to the bars which stood between them—so close that he could smell the spicy scent of her unbound hair, and the warm perfume of her naked flesh.

“I hold my throne with difficulty here,” she whispered. “To wield the power that is my inheritance from the ancient warrior princes of my blood, I must yield on some points. Can you understand that?”

He grinned humorlessly. “My death may be a small point to you, but it’s mighty important to me! But go on, I’m listening.”

Tears glittered in her thick lashes and her voice broke.

“Do you believe, Ryker, that your death is a small matter to me? Has there been naught between us that would suggest otherwise?”

His eyes fell and he grunted something she could not hear. Her eyes were fixed on his half-averted face, pleadingly.

“I have given you my lips, is that nothing? Do you believe that one of my lineage gives of herself lightly? I, who have never loved before—do you believe me to be incapable of love—even for a stranger from another world?”

Something rose within him then, within his heart. Something perilously near to … hope.

He looked at her somberly. “Love? We never spoke of it. You left me alone and among enemies, to die. Do you call that love?”

She nodded bravely. “Yes—love! The love of my people let me overrule the dictates of my heart, there on the isthmus. But you did not die, Ryker. Nor need you die now.”

“Keep talking,” he muttered.

“Listen closely, then. You will be given to the God tomorrow. You and the old man. You will descend into the Holy-of-Holies to stand before the Presence. Whether you live or die depends upon you—upon that which is in your heart. This much I have managed to wring from Lord Thoh and his followers—that we do not ourselves violate the ancient Vow our ancestors took before the God. It is the God alone who will be the cause of your death, if He so chooses!”

Ryker looked at her, thoughtfully. It was difficult to make out whether her god was real or whether she only believed him to be real. He knew so little about this Fire Devil the Lost Nation worshipped. There were so many questions, and so little time!

“We have a chance, then, to come through the ordeal alive?” he asked.

“Yes. Exactly that—a chance, nothing more. Others before you have gone down into the abyss, for one sin or another. Never were they seen alive again, for such was the Judgment of the God. But when you stand before Him, and He reads your heart, it is within His power to let you live. I pray with all of my own heart that it be so …oh, Ryker, Ryker … why did you ever come into my life to trouble me?”

She sagged against the bars, faint with weakness, and his strong arms went about her gently, and there, for the second time, he kissed her warm lips and felt the fragrance of her breath against his face.

“I have asked myself a thousand times how I could give my heart to a man of another race, another world, and I have found no answer for it,” she breathed under his kisses. “Save that you are strong and whole and clean, with a strength the men of my people no longer possess. Oh, Ryker!—my beloved!—when you stand before the God tomorrow—hold my image in your heart!”

“My Lady, it is time for the changing of the guard, and we must be gone,” murmured the other robed figure. And only now did Ryker notice that it was Melandron. She nodded, and stepped back reluctantly from his embrace. Brushing the tears from her face she smiled at him, one small, brave smile.

Then they were gone.

Ryker went slowly back to his pallet and lay there, staring up at the roof of the cell.

Whether he lived or died tomorrow, he had won the love of the most beautiful woman of two worlds. Maybe that meant that dying for her was worthwhile, after all.

Beneath the Temple where Valarda reigned, a great stone stair wound down into the bowels of Mars, And by that mighty stair, Ryker and Herzog descended the following day.

With them went Valarda and Melandron and many others, among these the smiling Lord Thoh and even little Kiki, whom Ryker had not seen before during his brief visit to the City.

The faces of those who escorted the two Earthlings were solemn and they wore the shadow of fear. There was little conversation between the lords. For the most part, they maintained a hushed and reverent silence. Ryker got the feeling that they would all be glad to leave this immense, cavernous space where dwelt eternally the strange and awesome divinity they worshipped.

Only Lord Thoh seemed jubilant and merry.

Ryker himself felt nothing at all. There was nothing in this Abyss, he knew, for he had long ago given up childish beliefs in gods and devils. He had an inkling of what he was about to face, and when they reached at length the bottom of the stair, he grinned bleakly to find his guess correct.

A vast open space lay hidden here far below the crust of Mars, the arched roof far overhead supported by columns of massive stone, like the pillars of some tremendous cathedral.

Roof and walls and columns were alike encrusted with some glittering crystalline, deposit. A dim, sourceless phosphorescence glimmered here in the depths, and this pale, wan luminescence was reflected in the glassy stuff of the mineral encrustation as from a million mirrors, until all of the vast and shadowy emptiness was made ghostly with wandering lights. Like will-o’-the-wisps, vague centers of radiance drifted to and fro between the huge columns, and twinkled in the facets of dangling stalactites, as in the glassy pendants of so many crystal chandeliers.

The floor of the vast, echoing cavern was smooth and regular, no doubt so shaped by the toil of men.

He looked around, admiring the fantastic scene. But there was nothing here to feel afraid of, for nothing lived in this Aladdin’s cave of glittering crystal and twinkling lights.

In the center of the floor was a vast pit whose sides were unnaturally smooth and regular and whose shaft went down to an unguessable depth.

Before this pit three stone spears had been left standing by the workmen who had cleared the cavern floor down to the primal bedrock. Fastened to these stalagmites were bronze shackles and chains.

They had been there a very long time, for they were old and deeply bitten by the teeth of time, green and scaly with verdigris.

Within them hung three skeletons—grisly, gaunt things of dead bone, staring at the pit with sightless, gaping sockets, grinning with mirthless, bony jaws.

These the guards unlocked from their chains, and cast them clattering away.

They chained Ryker and Herzog to the stony spears.

The spears rose from the cavern’s floor on the very brink of the enormous, circular pit. The two Earthlings were bound in such a way that they must face that yawning pit forever … until death came to claim then … or the God to judge them.

Only two they were, and the third stalagmite remained untenanted, its chains hanging loose and empty. Ryker grinned. It was like him to grin in the face of death, and a bit of gallows humor couldn’t hurt.

There were three thieves at Golgotha, he thought to himself with grim irreverence. Of course, one of them was no thief… .

The shackles were locked, and it was all over but the dying. That would be a slow, tedious business, but thirst and hunger would do the trick in time. There would be a lot of time, thought Ryker. All the time in the world.

He wondered vaguely how long their bones would hang in these chains, until tossed aside to make room for the next condemned men. Not that it mattered much.

The Martians are much given to ritual, but in this case there was none at all. Once they had seen the two men chained to the stone spears on the brink of the pit, they turned about and went back by the way they had come. It was as if they were, all of them, anxious to leave this dreadful place of wandering lights and faint echoes and crawling shadows.

Valarda looked one last time into Ryker’ s grim, glowering eyes. Her face was pale and pinched, her warm lips colorless, but hope glowed in her eyes. Then she dropped thick lashes to hide the naked candor of her gaze, and vanished from Ryker’s line of sight.

The others filed past, some glancing at him curiously, others averting their eyes as if ashamed of what had been done here.

Thoh gave his victim one bright glance of cold mockery, and an ironic wave of his hand as if to say goodbye, before he, too, began to ascend the stair.

Ryker and Doc stood there in the chains for a long time without speaking, until the last far, faint echo of shuffling feet died into silence far above them.

And they were left alone with only their thoughts to keep them company.

And shadows, and echoes, and vague, wandering lights.

Forever …

Forever is a long time. And here there was no way of measuring time.

After a while their arms and the muscles of back and shoulders began to ache from the strain of the awkward position in which the two men were chained.

After a while the torment ebbed, as if flesh had endured all it could, and numbness crept in, dulling the agony.

After a time the numbness, too, faded, and they could feel nothing at all in their arms. It was as if they were being slowly turned into men of stone, like the faceless Giants who had warded and watched the walls of Zhiam.

Thirst, too, became a torment. But hours—or days—later, they became unaware of thirst.

They were bound in too uncomfortable a position to be able to sleep. Every time their consciousness faded, and they sagged forward in the chains, the sharp bite of the scale bronze shackles knifing into the flesh of their wrists roused them.

They found their minds wandering. Ryker thought of soft beds and cool gardens and dewy goblets of wine and splashing fountains for a while. Then his mind seemed to drift away into waking dreams. Faces rose into his memory that he had long forgotten, the faces of friends and of foes. For a time he played in the summery garden of that white frame house, in the shadows of tall trees, with the small black and white dog. Even that dream faded and fled away at length, and his mind became blank and gray and empty… .

Suddenly a faint sound broke the trance that gripped Ryker’s dreaming mind. Something broke his vague reverie.

He turned his head to the right, ignoring the sting of pain in stiff muscles. Doc hung in the chains, his face pale and empty, his head sagging upon his bony breast, silvery wisps of hair disordered. He was unconscious, or dead. Either way, it was better so.

But the sound which had disturbed Ryker had not come from that source.

There it was again! A faint scuffle, the clatter of stone against stone.

From behind him …

And sweat came popping out all over Ryker’s nearly-naked body, as a thought of pure horror crashed into his numb brain.

What if there were rats down here ?

From dim, half-conscious dreaming, he came suddenly, terribly awake. Fully conscious how, his mind ablaze with merciless clarity, he remembered that the subterranean caverns of the Southlands were tunneled and teeming with the huge carnivorous rodents the Martians hunted for orthavva furs … rats the size of small dogs, they were, he knew.

And the blood congealed in his veins as the sheer, hopeless horror of his predicament burst upon his mind in all its implications.

Surely, in all the annals of human experience, there was no more ghastly way of dying than being devoured alive by rats.

That faint scuffle sounded again behind him.

Then something touched the back of his leg and Ryker almost fainted.

In the next split-second he nearly fainted again, but this time from a different emotion. For he felt like one snatched from the burning floor of Hell and set down amidst the gardens of Paradise.

For, just behind him, Kiki said, “Do you yet live, man?”

23. The Sacrifice

The boy was weary and bedraggled and travel stained, and he had been weeping, for tears tains were visible beneath his green eyes where they had cut through the coating of dust.

He was entirely naked, gray with dust from head to foot, with a smudge on his cheek, or possibly a bruise. His feet were dirty with stains of crushed mold or lichen, and rough, sharp stones had cut those little feet until they bled.

He left wet red marks on the stone floor as he limped to where Ryker hung in the chains.

Ryker stared down at the dusty, bedraggled lad, eyes wide with unbelief and filled with the dawning of hope. He had never been fond of the mischievous imp. Now he felt that he had never been so glad to see anyone in his entire life.

The boy wound his arms around Ryker’s waist and buried his dusty head against Ryker, and made strange, hoarse, coughing sounds. At first he could not identify these noises. Then it came to him that the boy was trying to sob, but that his throat was dry with dust, as dry as Ryker’s own.

“Kiki … why are you here?” he croaked through dry lips. The boy lifted his head to peer into Ryker’s face with eyes wild, yet curiously dull.

“They have come into the City,” he said tonelessly. “The Outlanders. My Lady has fallen from power. Prince Thoh leads the men, now, and he has condemned My Lady to face the God.”

“Prince Thoh it is now, is it?” rasped the big man heavily, twitching his cracked lips into a ghastly caricature of a smile.

Then the meaning of Kiki’s words hit him, and he stiffened.

They meant to hang Valarda in the chains on the third stone spear.

They meant her to die the slow, awful death to which he and Doc were condemned.

Ryker growled, deep in his chest, like an animal. Through the dusty tangle of his disordered locks, his eyes glared like the eyes of a lion. Suddenly, weariness and stiffness and pain left him. He felt filled with a terrible strength, a strength of fury and desperation.

“The chains, boy,” he gasped. “Get them off me … break them, cut them … get me loose!”

After a time, Kiki gave up the futile attempt to free Ryker from his chains, and collapsed in a sobbing heap at the feet of the Earthling.

Even though corrosion had eaten deeply into the hard bronze of the shackles, neither Ryker’s strength nor Kiki’s cunning and agile fingers could free the tall man of his bonds.

The Earthling looked down at the boy huddled at his feet, his hard face gentle.

“It’s all right, Kiki. Don’t cry. You did the best you could.”

“It wasn’t good enough,” the boy said in a choked voice.

“Maybe not. But you did the very best you could, and that’s all anybody can do—their best.”

Doc, who had recovered consciousness during the past half an hour, and who had watched the boy’s labor with sympathetic eyes, uttering encouraging noises from time to time, now lifted his head and stared up. Distant echoes sounded above them, coming from the shaft over their heads, and the stair. The echoes of footsteps descending.

“They’re coming already,” the old man observed.

“I guess so,” muttered Ryker somberly. “You go hide yourself now, Kiki. No, not back there—among those stalagmites on the opposite side of the pit. Hurry, now, before they see you.”

The boy scampered off, and Ryker and the Israeli were alone again. But not for very long.

The party that entered the cavern was largely the same as had brought Ryker and Doc Herzog to be chained to the stone spears. Missing were a few of Valarda’s supporters; present were very many more of Thoh’s faction.

Thoh himself now walked proudly, features molded in an expression of haughty disdain. Only the eager, febrile glitter in his eyes revealed how deliciously Lord Thoh—Prince Thoh—revelled in his newly acquired power. It was obviously the culmination of a dream he had long nurtured in secret.

And now it was Valarda’s turn to play the humble captive, bound and helpless, soon to face the judgment of her god. The Priestess held her head high, and her expression was proud and unafraid, but she was pale as death and the shadow of dread haunted her golden eyes.

The guards were uneasy and looked harried and crestfallen. Their captain, a man called Hartha, no longer led them. Apparently, he had remained loyal to his Priestess, or Prince Thoh considered him likely to prove disloyal to the new regime. Taking his place at the head of the guards was a grinning rascal named Sastro whom Ryker remembered having seen in Thoh’s retinue on an earlier occasion.

Valarda had been stripped of her plumed coronal and most of her gems, but she did not seem to have been used by rough hands nor offered any indignities, insofar as was apparent from her appearance or demeanor.

They chained her to the third spear, tugging the chains taut so that her arms were forced above her head. She endured this without a word of complaint, without permitting a sound to escape her lips. Ryker growled and glowered. If looks could kill, the smirking prince would have been struck dead on the spot.

“We have brought you some feminine companionship to lighten the boredom of your wait, Outworlder,” Thoh smiled. He was well aware of Ryker’s smoldering rage, and it amused him. A chained lion, however ferocious, can be safely taunted. And Ryker was still chained.

“You may face the judgment of your god before we do,” remarked the old Israeli with tranquil relish. The prince glanced at him, surprised. Doc Herzog grinned, and added, “The enemy is at your gates, already. Or maybe even inside the City by this time. Your reign is likely to be a short one, so enjoy it while it lasts!”

Thoh paled to the lips at this impertinence from so unexpected a source, and half raised his hand as if to strike the old man in the face. Then he thought better of it, and turned a glance of pure venom upon the proud, silent figure of Valarda.

“It was this witch’s doing,” he snarled. And his features, distorted by the intensity of his rage, lost for a moment their smooth, effeminate prettiness, and became vicious. “If she had given me the men I wanted, and let me ride forth against the invaders, to use against them the weaponry our ancestors used once, long ago, against their ancestors—”

“Probably wouldn’t have done you much good,” growled Ryker. “Your folks lost that war too, I understand.”

Thoh looked him up and down, his face cold and heavy. Then he spat deliberately between Ryker’s feet. Ryker looked him straight in the eye and grinned. There was no humor in it but a baring of white teeth, as a wolf grins before it bites. Thoh took an involuntary step backwards, then bit his lip, hating himself for momentarily letting his weakness show.

He stepped forward and struck Ryker across the face—once—twice—three times—slapping Ryker’s head back against the stone of the spear to which he was chained. Ryker held the grin steady, although a trickle of red blood ran down his chin from a cut on his mouth. Thoh flushed and stepped back, panting.

“The God will judge us all,” remarked Valarda in a serene, untroubled voice. “Those who kept the Vow and those who would break it.”

“The god you worship sleeps,” said Thoh shortly. “Not since the time of our grandsires has He awakened from His slumbers. You may expect little help from that quarter, My Lady! No … here you will remain while the world grows old … you will hang in those chains until your tongue swells with thirst and your belly shrinks with hunger, and you go mad and die raving … raving to a god who cannot even hear you, and who will never wake again.”

At that moment there was an interruption.

One of the lords who stood near Thoh uttered an exclamation, pointing beyond them, across the pit.

Thoh turned, and all eyes looked in that direction. Ryker, too, looked—then froze with horror.

Upon the far side of the pit a small, slight figure came into view. A young lad, naked and dust-stained and desperate. He stood upon the very brink of the pit, staring down to unguessable depths. The expression on his face was terrible to see.

” Kiki! Don’ t!” Ryker yelled hoarsely. The boy did not even raise his head to look in his direction.

“I must,” he panted. “I must do the very best I can.”

Valarda stared at him, unbelieving. Her lips parted, and she strove to speak, but fear had paralyzed her tongue and she could utter no sound.

“Why, it is the little imp,” muttered Thoh distractedly. “However did he get here—and what is he about?”

“He’s going to jump!” said Sastro. Thoh looked at him questioningly.

“Whatever for?”

Then Kiki raised his thin arms above his tousled head and cried out—

“For my Lady! For her! O, God of my people—awaken!”

And hurled himself over the brink, and fell.

Ryker shut his eyes, feeling sick. Valarda choked back a sob and let her head fall forward so that her long hair hid her face. And the old Israeli said something in a low voice. It was in Hebrew and none of them could understand that tongue, but it sounded like a prayer.

The others looked at one another. Thoh seemed curiously effected. He bit his lip, eyes hooded, brooding upon the pit where the young boy had fallen to his death. His expression was unreadable.

And then there came another interruption.

From the shadows, Zarouk strode forth, grinning, a long sword naked in his hand. Behind him others moved, muttering, their hands heavy with steel. It would seem that the invaders had followed Prince Thoh and his retinue, descending the great stair in silence, careful to conceal their presence.

Zarouk looked at Thoh, then at Ryker and Valarda. He grinned hugely and waved his sword in a mocking salute. His desert raiders crowded close behind him, eyeing Thoh’s guards belligerently, eager for the kill.

One rush, and victory would be theirs. And they knew it.

The next surprise, however, was that of Thoh. For he shrugged back his heavy cloak, and showed the desert men his hands. They were tender and soft, those hands, and there were too many jeweled rings upon their fingers, but now they bore something else.

Ryker’s guns. The guns that Valarda had stolen from him when he had slept his drugged sleep, there on the isthmus when she had deserted him.

Ryker had forgotten all about them. He knew they must be somewhere here in Zhiam, but he had not thought about them.

Evidently, Prince Thoh had.

His slim, beringed hands might be soft and womanish, but they bore a heavy weight of death.

And now it was Thoh’s turn to smile and Zarouk who paled, bit his lip, looked uncertain, and stepped backwards, lowering his sword.

A deadly tension grew in the air between the two groups of men. Taut it was and near to breaking. And when it broke, guns would rave and steel would flash crimson and blood would be spilt—here, in this holy place, even here!

And then, the last interruption—

From far away, the murmur of bells. Many they were, faint and far—a distant chiming, cold and pure and sweet! Like bells of glass or crystal … like tiny chimes of ice … ringing, crystalline music!

And, from the dark mouth of the pit wherein Kiki had thrown himself, a faint glimmer of dim light—cold it was, and blue and white, like brilliance that was reflected from mirrors of ice.

The music rang clearer now, and sharper!

The dim luminescence about the mouth of the pit … brightened!

Whatever it was, it was coming up the shaft—and getting nearer!

24. Child of Stars

Light—pure, sparkling light—poured up out of the black pit like a fountain of shimmering fire!

The cold and awful glory of it shone back from thrice ten thousand crystal facets, till every plane and angle of the cavern, every mineral encrustation, every glassy stalactite, blazed like a billion, billion diamonds, reflecting an utterness of light, a purity of light, beyond description as it was beyond belief.

One of the bandits sank to the cavern floor in a crouch, huddling in the dust. He covered glazed, horror-struck eyes with hands that shook, shielding his gaze from that ineffable radiance.

” Zhagguaziu ...” he moaned. Then said no more; neither did he move.

Zarouk stared into the seething splendor, his face blank with awe. Forgotten now were his red dreams of conquest and empire. He looked upon the glorious god he had thought to be a demon, and there was wonder in his heart, childlike and simple.

The blaze of glory faded now, as if the splendid creature somehow realized that its brilliance was too intolerable for mortal men to bear. It … veiled itself, and dimmed its fires a bit, and floated there in midair above the floor of the cavern.

Ryker blinked through tear filled eyes, trying to make out its shape and nature through the blinding light. There was an inner core of brilliance brighter than the rest, a slim, tapering spindle, like the flame that dances on the wick of a candle. This was light of an utter purity of white, a spark of white—one spark, perchance, of that supernal flame that burns in the heart of stars.

But between the awful glory of that inner core, lacy veils of shimmering luminescence, filmy and fragile— like the wings of moths, shimmering and shot through with a thousand tints and hues—like floating draperies of sheerest gauze, spun by sorcery from the stuff of glowing opals—drifted and swirled and coiled about the brilliance of the core, veiling it from view.

Whatever it was, it was no devil. It was too beautiful to exist, too lovely to be real. And far too perfect in its glory to have aught of evil within it.

Pure light it was, pure energy, like the soul of a star.

Somehow—although it had no eyes, no organs of any kind—it saw them, the puny creatures of flesh and bone and blood that crouched or huddled or cowered far beneath its airy dance.

And somehow, although it had no mouth, no organs of speech, it spoke to them. The voice of the Glory was a thin, cold song and it whispered deep within their very minds, that song, cold and sweet and wild as the polar winds that sang through pinnacles of ice at the utter and secret pole of the world.

Why dost thou feed life to me, when sacrifice is forbidden from of old, and I have no need of such sustenance?

Sweet, sweet was the singing of the Glory within their brain, cool, and serene, and passionless.

It was such a little life, so short, so young! Thou knowest that I have forbidden the taking of life, and will not countenance the shedding of blood. Poor, puny creatures that ye be, with lives as brief as any candle-flame, why must ye shorten that which is already cruelly brief? Thy offering I return to thee, and I must chastise thee, and sternly, that ye sin in this manner against me no more.

Veils of drifting coruscation drew aside, parted asunder … and there, cradled and swathed in living light was the boy, Kiki, naked and beautiful and alive, his face gentle and dreaming, his eyes filled with wonder.

“Kiki!” breathed Valarda, breathlessly. The swirling mists of brilliance deposited the boy, whole and unharmed, upon the cavern floor. He stretched bare arms, and yawned, showing a little pink tongue, then looked about him dazedly, as bemused as one who just awakened from strange and lovely dreams.

Seeing Valarda and Ryker and Herzog chained to the stony stalagmites, he smiled and came over to them. About his body there yet clung a dim, pulsing luminescence, a wisp of that greater Glory which filled all of the cavern with its splendor.

He touched their chains with shining fingers and, somehow, strangely, they were free.

First he freed Valarda in this manner, then the old Israeli, and Ryker last of all. Pausing before Ryker, he looked up into the man’s dark face, wonderingly.

“Oh!” he murmured. “You are weary, and you thirst! But that should not be. A moment—there!”

He touched Ryker with glowing hands—brow, mouth and breast—and gently, as a child might touch an injured dove. A weird, cold thrill ran through Ryker’s nerves, an icy tingle, electric yet bracing. And then he felt the weakness and stiffness and the exhaustion drain from his lame and weary muscles and numb limbs. It drained away and it was gone, as if it had never been. He flexed strong hands, unbelievingly. Even the sores on his wrists, where scaly verdigris-eaten metal had bitten deep in his flesh as he fought the shackles, even those were healed. And so was the thirst that tortured him, and he felt whole and well and filled with strength again, like one who wakens from a deep, long sleep, refreshed and invigorated.

The boy turned to look at the hovering Glory.

“Did I do it right, Lord?” he inquired.

Thou knowest that it is well done, said the Glory. And now touch thou the old one, too, and heal his suffering.

The boy smiled dreamily and went to where the old scientist hung in his chains, his lined and homely face filled with awe and wonderment. The boy said something to the old man shyly, and touched him with light-misted fingers as he had touched Ryker.

“What … have you done … to Kiki, Lord?” whispered Valarda.

Ah, my priestess! laughed the Glory, chiming with faint music as it swirled about to regard her. She who would have kept the Vow, and lost her throne for keeping it! The child, you ask? He hath only died. His poor, broken flesh it is within my power to heal, but to make him live again—aiee!—am I a god, that I can restore life to the dead? Nay! But a tiny portion of myself I placed within his breast, that he might live again—changed, is he, and yet the same child that ye knew. Only, a little different.

Ryker went over to where Valarda knelt before the Glory, and raised her to her feet, and held her against his chest. Then he lifted his head and stared into the lacy, swirling mists of spangled light that veiled from their dazed eyes the splendors of the central fire.

“If you are not a god, what are you, then?” he asked through stiff lips.

The veils of moted splendor swirled and coiled about the curdled purity of flame. A storm of tinkling chimes rang out and faded.

I? I am—Life! Life without end and without beginning! Old as the stars am I, who once was one with them.. . but that was long ago, O very long ago … at the Creation.

The spangled mists writhed, floating vapors spun from pure light drifting on the air their opal luminescence. The blazing spindle at the core seemed to fade, then to brighten, then to ebb again, like the slow pulsing of a mighty heart.

When the Universe began was I born … one with the stars was I, but different—different! For I lived, and knew that I lived, and the great suns about me knew not that they lived… thus was I alone in my sentience and my being, and they, the stars, of which I had been born, they knew me not, nor danced as I danced in my joy, for I alone lived.

“Child-of-Stars,” whispered Doc Herzog faintly, staring up into the Glory. “Born of the chance interplay of energy—perhaps once in a billion times a billion years such a thing is born, a creature of pure energy, self-sustaining, eternal—”

The Glory laughed, like silver bugles ringing faint and far.

“Yes, the Child-of-Stars am I! Long ages did I drift through the starry spaces, seeking to find another such as I to be my friend. But there was no other one such as I, for I was alone in all that vast immensity! And so, in time, I came down to this little world, as I had visited ten thousand others in my quest, and here—here I found living things that knew and felt and loved and thought, even as I. Different from the Child-of-Stars they were, their core of splendor trapped in a prison-house of flesh, but, yet, more like to me than aught that I had found among the cold and empty splendor of the star-thronged galaxies. So here I dwelt, befriending the little creatures, one tribe of them that did not flee from me in terror… ah, it was long and long ago!”

“A billion years, maybe,” breathed Herzog.

So long as that? Mayhap, old man. But when their brothers turned to rend them for that they worshipped me, I brought them here, here to Zhiam, here to the City that we built together outside the world. Ah, it was hard, hard to open wide the Doors of Time to bring them here to Yesterday, but I was young and strong and filled with love for them, my friends, my people, my little brethren, and I worked the wonder! So that they should be safe from the enmity and the hatred of their own kind, I brought them here to this place and to this age which even time itself had forgotten, and which no men knew, for here it is a billion years before the first men rose to sentience upon this planet, and here I gave unto them that land of peace and plenty, even as I had sworn that I would do … if they would only keep sacrosanct that Vow which I extracted from them, that no life should be taken here, and no blood spilt.

Doc’s old face, lifted to the Glory, was saintly, enthralled, rapt with fascination as he drank in this uncanny tale of a vast exodus across the ages. And, perhaps, he was remembering another age, and another exodus, and another people whose God had brought them also out of bondage and peril, into a promised land of peace and plenty that was to be theirs, so long as they held true to another Vow, and obeyed another set of Commandments.

But that was long and long ago, I see … and there be those among my children who weary of their obedience to that Vow, and would break it, and shed blood against my will … and others, too, sprung from the loins of ancient enemies, who have at length pursued us here across the ages! And who would now renew that old, forgotten war—ah, children! Children! How jealously you cling to those little toys of steel and iron that ye love so well—and to those newer toys, as I observe, which your brothers on a younger world nearer to the sun have brought hither … well, and well! Then I must chastise thee, and close the Door which ye have opened—and then? And then, ah, then—I shall sleep again, for as I slumbered long centuries here in this place below the world, what lovely dreams I knew, what lovely dreams! But, now, to my toil!

And veils of lacy incandescence swirled wide like the bright wings of angels from Paradise, and swept them up, one and all—and the rocky cavern roof above their heads split asunder—and they rose, webbed about in scintillant splendor, and soared up above the City where bands of men fought and slew, and beasts screamed, and buildings burned with red flame, and black smoke dirtied the pure and lambent skies of morning.

Up to a towering height the Glory soared, and there, atop the great parapet that enclosed the utmost tier of the Temple, which was itself built upon the greatest height of the City, it left them, and they turned, dazed and dazzled, blinking in wonder at each other, and at themselves.

Valarda still clung to Ryker, and his arm was strong about her slim waist. They were beyond wonder now, and beyond awe and marvel, clinging together like children, seeking comfort in the warmth of sheltering arms and the nearness of another.

And they turned and looked down upon the City.

And the Glory fell upon the City, in a storm of crystalline chiming.

So ye would war, would ye? it sang—cold and serene and merciless was that piercing music! Well, I shall teach you—war!

25. When Gods War

Zhaim lay helpless in the grip of the enemies who had come out of the deeps of time to slay and thieve and ravage.

Few indeed were the desert raiders Zarouk had brought with him, but even a few fighting men can cut a red swath through men with empty hands, who may not make or bear arms.

Such little as men may do to defend their wives and homes and children, the men of Zhiam had already done. Barricades had been built, streets blocked, doors locked, and women hidden away. But barricades may be torn down by many strong, determined hands, locked doors be beaten in, and houses burned. And when men with empty hands strive to shield their loved ones with their own bodies, sharp steel can rend asunder that flimsy barricade as well.

And Zarouk’s horde was very good at its work.

Flames flickered in the ruins of gutted houses. Villas lay open, ravished of their lovely loot by swaggering conquerers. Men had been cut down and lay now staring with dead, uncomprehending eyes upon the ruin, from pools of spreading redness.

Women—especially those who were young and beautiful—were not slain. But there were those among them who ere long would wish for the benison of the knife, rather than the shame of serving their conquerors in the immemorial way in which the women of the conquered must serve their conquerors.

Palaces stood open, doors battered in, flames flickering through shattered windows, while rough, cursing men carried heaps of plunder through trampled gardens.

Children—those young enough, and desirable enough to make good slaves—huddled together, tongueless, wide eyed, under guard.

Then, suddenly, the Glory was there.

It was vaster now than it had been in the depths of the world, like some enormous cloud of scintillation and jewelled splendor, it hung above the rubble choked streets bestrewn with corpses, loot and nubile captives.

The desert hawks stared up at it curiously, wonderingly, then shrugged, and turned back to their red work.

There were many marvels in this strange world, and all were harmless. What is one marvel more?

They would learn soon enough, and to their sorrow.

Prone in a puddle of congealing gore, a dead man sprawled. He had been a guard stationed before the Temple, more a position of honor than aught else, in this paradisical world where there were no thieves or murderers, and his weapons were ornamental, little more. But his heart had been brave and true, and when the desert men came swaggering and laughing through the streets, he had gone against them, using only his bare hands and not the flimsy weapons at his side. And they had cut him down, slashing open his belly with a careless, backhand stroke, so that his bowels fell out upon the pavement.

He had fallen, then, still striving to protect that which he was here to ward. Fallen and died there on the cobbles, while rough men laughed and jeered and mocked him in his dying.

That had been almost an hour ago.

But now … he lived.

Jerkily—slowly—awkwardly, like a jointed puppet— the dead man got to his feet. And stood, spread legged, turning his head stiffly from side to side. His face was pale and dirty, and blood was upon it. His eyes were dull and filmed and his mouth hung slackly open.

The raiders nearest to him were piling gorgeous furnishings into a tottery heap. Fussing about them was Houm, fat, greedy Houm, his greasy lips smiling, his quick, clever eyes counting the value of the silken tapestries, the hand-carved ivory furniture, the jewel-studded vases, the precious things of jade and cinnabar and lapis.

Suddenly the smile went crooked on Houm’s fat face.

For, stalking stiffly towards him, the dead man came.

He paled then, did Houm, and plucked at trembling lips with beringed fingers, babbling crazy things. For the walking corpse, with its belly slashed open and wet bowels dragging, went over to the first man and tore his throat out with cold, stiff hands.

The second man died just as quickly, for the corpse broke his neck. The third man backed off, swearing, cutlass-shaped sword out. Hoarsely, he commanded the slayer of his two comrades to halt, and when he would not halt the raider took a cut at him. The sword made red ruin of the dead man’s face, but did not even slow him.

He twisted the raider’s head off, and tossed it aside. The grisly thing rolled across the pavement to thump into the head of a plunderer.

Houm followed it with vacant eyes. He giggled.

But not for long.

The walking corpse, now faceless, was upon Houm then. He picked the fat man up as if he weighed no more than a doll, and broke his back across a bended knee, as a man might break a rotten stick.

So perished Houm, the merchant who had dreamt of the plunder of an entire world, and who now would inherit only six feet of it, or as much as makes a grave.

And the Glory—laughed!

Xinga was at the wall. He had been supervising the destruction of the Stone Giants, but now his work was done and the last of the enchanted colossi had been rendered helpless with nets or lassoes, and reduced to gravel under pounding war-hammers, mauls and axes.

Now, Xinga wanted some of the fun the other raiders had been enjoying.

He had found a girl and had taken her away from the warrior and was admiring his bit of plunder. She was a child of perhaps thirteen, slim and exquisite, with silken hair and faery eyes like wet jewels. A bit young for his tastes, to be sure, but hip and breast and thigh were firm and round with the promise of the woman she would one day become.

She begged him with pleading, eloquent eyes, for he had bound her lips with a gag; he laughed, telling her to relax and perhaps she would enjoy it, too. Then he stripped her rags from her and lay her on the trampled ground of her father’s garden.

Ignoring her weak struggling, and the moans and whimpers which escaped from her gagged mouth, he lay down upon her and played with her bare breasts for a time, prolonging the moment when he would take her, finding the delay teasingly delicious.

Tossed into a gory heap near a broken alabaster fountain, her father and her brothers lay, hacked to red ruin. Now, as Xinga played with the girl, fondled and smiled as she writhed under the touch of his dirty fingers, he was too preoccupied to notice when the pile of corpses came apart and the dead boys and their father came stiffly to their feet and stalked over to where he lay amusing himself.

One took him by the leg, another by the arm, and the third by the head. They tore him apart.

Dmu Dran had remained behind to oversee the desecration of the Inner Shrine of the Temple. The little gaunt fanatic knew that his master, Zarouk, and a party of warriors had descended into the depths beneath the building in pursuit of the so-called Prince who had seized power, but it mattered little to him.

He was a priest, and must be about his holy business.

He had built a bonfire of the Zhiamese scrolls and sacred scriptures—beautiful painted parchments, covered with writing unknown to him, which had preserved from the lapse of time the ancient wisdom and philosophy and speculations of the sages.

They burned beautifully, he thought.

He had dragged from the heap of bound captives, taken when the Temple was first broken into, a young priest or novice. He was a boy, sixteen or seventeen at the most, and his eyes were wide and frightened, and he was praying to his god in a half-heard whisper.

Dmu Dran had cut his robes away, so that he would watch that adolescent nakedness writhe and wriggle in the flames.

When he had stripped the boy stark naked, he dragged him by the feet across the floor, then rolled him over on his belly into the fire.

The boy had screamed. But now, blackened and shrivelled, he was beyond screaming.

Dmu Dran was bending over the heap of captives, picking another victim for his holy work, when something took place behind him that he did not notice until the sound of scraping feet made him turn and … freeze.

The burnt boy had gotten up from his bed of fire and was dragging himself on stiff, black, withered legs towards his tormentor.

His face had been seared away to the naked bone of his skull, which was brown and greasy and still smoking.

Dmu Dran stared and stared, and then his eyes rolled up into his head until only the whites showed.

The burnt boy-priest took him by the back of the neck in a grip as strong as stone, and dragged him over to the bonfire where the precious scriptures smoldered, and thrust him face down into the coals, and held him there until he died.

The coals were hot and red and glowing, but it took him all of twenty minutes to die.

One by one the fires went out, for the Glory called the clouds and commanded them to rain.

There was by that time an army of corpses, and they stalked stiffly about, clearing away the rubble. Most of the raiders were dead by this time, and, after a while, they too, had risen and walked, and now toiled beside their victims, clearing away the wreckage and smothering the last few stubborn fires, and removing the ruins from where the gates of the City had been.

Not everyone in the City had been slain, of course. Some of the men lived, and almost all of the women and children, save those who had been taken by many men and had died therefrom.

Nor had all the raiders perished. Some few, quicker of thought than their brethren, had thrown down their swords and surrendered. These now huddled together without speaking, guarded by animated horrors that had once been dead. Some of the captives wept, or cursed in ragged, breathless monotones. But most of them just sat there with dead faces and empty eyes, waiting for doom, and glancing up from time to time at the Glory which drifted here and there above the towers.

There were many of the men and boys of the City who had been injured or maimed but were not yet dead. These were brought before Kiki and he healed them, one by one, with a touch of his hands whereon the supernal light yet lingered.

There were old men and women who had looked on too much horror, and women and children who had endured too much. These, whose minds had broken under their torment, were healed by Kiki too. Serene, forgetting that which they had endured, they smiled now, seeking out their friends and families among the living.

After the slaying, you see, there is a time for healing, the Glory observed in its cool, singing voice. Is it not well, Lord Thoh?

In a hushed voice, his face as pale and dead as one of the walking corpses, Lord Thoh agreed that it was well.

You wanted war, did you not? For honor and glory and to prove your virility. Well, you have seen now, Lord Thoh, the red face of war. Did you find it.. . pretty?

Thoh swallowed with a dry, aching throat. He had been sick five times during the scenes of carnage, and he had emptied his guts until there was nothing left to vomit up. Now, shakily, he said that war was … not pretty.

Zarouk maintained a cold, impassive mien. He had, however, closed his teeth upon his bottom lip to keep from crying out while being forced to look on as his men were butchered by the walking dead they had slain.

He had bitten entirely through his lip, and the blood bedewed his beard and stained the front of his robe.

But he had not cried out.

And you, Prince Zarouk? How do you like your conquest—and your empire? Shall I command the dead to build you a kingdom, whereover you may rule the dead men, and be served by them, forever? the Glory inquired, sweetly.

No flicker of expression showed in the stony eyes of the Desert Hawk. “You are the victor here,” he mumbled through maimed lips. “Do with me what you will.”

I shall, indeed! laughed the Glory. For in every contest, there is the victor and the vanquished. Shall I do with you, O Zarouk, as you would have done with the vanquished, had you been the victor here?

Zarouk said nothing, but no longer did he hold his head so high. He was a beaten man.

And when it was all finished, and the City was cleared for rebuilding, and the injured healed and restored to their loved ones, there came a time for ending.

The Glory directed the army of the walking dead to leave Zhiam. They marched out into the great blue valley and dwindled from sight into the distance. Far, far from the City the unnatural vitality which sustained the illusion of life within them would withdraw, and they would find lonely graves in the wilderness, there to sleep forever.

Now this is my decree, said the Glory.The victors shall dwell here with the vanquished, and together they shall toil to rebuild the City. Shoulder to shoulder they shall labor together, and perchance they shall in time discover they are no different, one from the other, for all men are as brothers, although they forget this simple truth and let vain words and bits of painted cloth called flags and other futile, flimsy, frivolous things divide them, one from the other.

And, once again, I say unto you: abide by the Vow! Shed not the blood of beasts or men, nor slay aught that liveth, but dwell in peace and harmony with all life. Do this, and I, Child-of-Stars, shall be thy friend forever. But break the Vow, and I shall break thy City asunder, and drive thee forth into the wilderness to live like beasts, naked and comfortless, to sweat and toil beneath the lash of storms.

And the people of the Lost Nation, and those who lived of Zarouk’s band, bent their heads before the Glory and repeated again the Vow their ancestors had sworn, long ago.

The Door I shall seal forever, that none may again be tempted to flee into Tomorrow, and the Keystone shall be riven into dust, aye, and that false replica made by the cunning of the priest. You shall dwell here in the past for all your days, you and your children and your children’s children, far from strife and want and peril.

And the twin seals were ground into dust before the eyes of all, and, far off at the head of the valley, a doorway veiled in glittering metallic mist closed, and was solid rock again, nevermore to open.

My priesthood I withdraw from the line of Valarda, but not to chastise her for failing to restrain the warlike passions of her subjects. Instead, I bequeath it unto the child, Kiki, who hath partaken of my spirit and who hath close affinity with me. He in his time shall pass my spirit on to whomsoever he chooseth, that I may be served forever.

Valarda bowed in submission, then raised her face to the Glory.

“And what of me and mine, Lord? What is your will?” she whispered.

The Glory looked down upon her, in all her beauty and humility, then looked to the strong, grim-faced Earthling who stood very near. And the Child-of-Stars laughed!

You have love for each other, you two, after the ways of your flesh, it said gently. Why do you deny the passion written in your hearts? Go unto each other, my children, and make many fat babies! And you, Valarda, shall reign over this people as their Princess. And you, Earthling, shall rule beside her whom thy heart loveth. Be strong and fair and just and vigilant in that rule, for behold, among you there yet live those who were thine enemies, Zarouk and Thoh. See that you hold steady the thrones that Child-of-Stars hath given you.

“We shall hold them, Lord,” said Ryker. And it was a promise.

Do so, then! … Love each other; rule in peace; and find happiness after the manner of your kind. Now I grow weary, I who have slept the ages by, dreaming of that which I shall never find, that which will ever remain unattainable … another like unto me to companion me through all the aeons to come. Leave me, now, my children, for I would return to my dreams, wherein alone I may find the happiness else denied me.

And the Glory sank into the City, and the ground opened before it. But for a moment it lingered, lingered—

But wake me, in just a little time—as you measure time—so that I may look upon the first of those fat babies. Now, farewell!

The ground closed in thunder, and the Glory was gone.

And Ryker took Valarda’s hand in his own, and they went down from that height into their City, where Herzog and Melandron and Kiki and many others awaited them, to wed and to rule, to issue their commands and decrees. And, very likely, to live happily all their days, after the manner of their kind.

And the evening and the morning were the seventh day.