The Star Magicians

9. MONSTERS AMONG THE STARS

DAWN BROKE, cold and dim, over the mist-veiled crystalline deserts of Xulthoom. Although the planet swung in close orbit about its primary, only sixty million miles from Aar, its parent sun, this luminary was an aged, cooling red dwarf. Its somber, blood-crimson globe shed only dim light and little heat that escaped the merciless cold of outer space.

All night, goaded by the stinging lash of Drask’s tongue and impatient blows from the flat of his sword, the grumbling pirate horde had toiled to load their gear and booty aboard the shuttle-boats. The stupendous vaults of treasure, the heaped and piled loot of nameless eons they were forced to abandon to the Hooded Men, who stood silently watching, waiting for the departure of their savage conquerors. Although Tonguth felt a vast relief at the thought that they were at last lifting off this accursed demon-haunted planet, the avarice in his soul panged him at the vision of the uncountable wealth of radium-rubies their abrupt and unexpected departure forced them to leave behind.

For long hours the Chieftain supervised the movement of men, machines and loot. Like a weird flock of man-birds, scores of horn-helmeted Star Rovers drifted up from the goblin turrets of Djormandark Keep, weightless on their gravity belts, soaring up with flapping cloaks into the gaping, capacious holds of the personnel-carriers that hovered waiting in the ghostly fog-drift, ready to lift them into the bellies of the fleet ships in orbit beyond the misty atmosphere.

At last it was accomplished.

Wheezing wearily, dragging a thick forearm across his sweat-dewed brow, Tonguth toiled up the interdeck ramp of the Red Hawk, ancient flagship of the mighty nomad fleet. He entered the gigantic Control Center to join his comrades. Drask sat, staring moodily at the screens, sprawled out in his enormous acceleration chair, but the others had withdrawn a little from him, wary of his furious temper. Abdekiel the Shaman, bland as a fat Buddha, stood calmly beside Shangkar, as old, one-eyed Gorm, the master-pilot, communicated his instructions to the ship’s computer-brain.

The shaman had swiftly recovered from his terror, Tonguth noted. Even though not present when the voice of the Green Goddess had spoken through Her crystal eye, Tonguth knew the whole story. Whispers of the awful warning had gone forth, passed like lightning from man to man, throughout the whole Rover garrison, until every last pirate had heard the grim tale.

Shangkar himself was now recovered from his terrible experience upon the black battlements. His fierce cat-eyes burned like coals in a tawny face still haggard from the ordeal. His bronzed hand twitched by his axe handle, and his cruel nature hungered to be revenged for the humiliation he had suffered before his companions. Smiling thinly, Abdekiel could almost read the thoughts seething with red rage through the brawny barbarian’s skull: “Set me within arm’s reach of whatever man, god or spirit worked that foul sorcery on me, and I will write proof in scarlet blood of my manhood!”

The bland smile deepened, curling Abdekiel’s full, fleshy lips. His cool, calculating mind made a note of Shangkar’s emotional state, tagged it and filed it for possible future use. Gross, cold-blooded schemer that he was, the oily shaman knew how to use men to his advantage … how to play subtly, secretly on their fears, hatreds and hungers. This enormous chess game of men and emotions was life itself to him, and the little pleasure he tasted from life’s cup came from this endless, engrossing game.

Drask’s face was grim, shut, unreadable. Tonguth did not seek to make conversation. He joined the others and watched the vast screen suspended above their heads from the second level of the domed chamber.

It was a magnificent, heart-stirring sight. The giant fleet was aligned and ready, a huge glittering crescent of mile-long superbattleships curving away from the Red Hawk to either side in mighty metal wings. The flagship surged ahead now, and the muted drone of her unthinkably powerful nuclear turbines filled the great dim-lit room with soft, monotonous thunder. In the dimness of the room, panel upon panel woke with a flickering pattern of signal-lights. Dark-robed pilot-cadets moved quietly from panel to panel, noting down various readings on clipboards, or whispering softly into throat-microphones.

In the center of the first level, old Gorm sat in the oval heart of a horseshoe console of master controls. Scattered about his central position in an open circle were lesser control stations … so vast was the Red Hawk, so infinitely complex the machines and systems that powered, lit and maneuvered her, that no one pilot alone could keep track of her multiplex operations.

Now on the giant screen the dim, fog-wrapped bulk of Xulthoom was receding like a thrown ball into the dead black of space—slowly at first, forming the illusion of a shallow bowl and blocking half the screen, then becoming convex to the eye, ringed about with black space … then swifter, swifter, falling back from their viewpoint as a shrinking globe.

Now the flare of coronal fires, as the gray planet eclipsed its dim red sun … then it seemed to fall away to one side of the blind, dimly-flaring primary, and rapidly dwindled from view, lost among the stars.

The mood of silent tension that had gripped all now broke as Xulthoom vanished from the screens. Whatever had been the price, they had escaped the weird powers that haunted that World of Eternal Mists.

“Thanks be to Maryash the Protector!” Tonguth grunted to the group in general, heaving his burly shoulders with relief. “I am happy to see the last of that planet of ghosts and darkness! Thraxis give us a healthier world ahead—sunlit and green, with soft women, hard gold, and red wine for our gullets!”

The shaman eyed him obliquely, with fastidious distaste, but Shangkar grinned and flexed his long arms.

“Aye! That filthy ball of fog and grit is no place for a fighting-man! What is the world ahead, Lord?”

Drask woke from dark, brooding dream, and called to a slave for wine. These days, Tonguth thought uneasily, the Warlord seemed to lean ever more heavily on the winecup. Although he was never quite drunk, he seemed never quite sober either, and wine did not calm or fuddle him as it did other, lesser men. Nay … it but fed the seething fires of hatred that gnawed at his heart, inwardly consuming him …

“A fair enough world, from the charts,” the Warlord grated harshly, thirstily downing a cup of Bellerophon’s icy green mint-wine. “Little weaponry, so you can rest easy, my bold heroes. A simple, rustic world … happy village people … few cities … but the richest source in Powermetal any of the Orion stars can boast!”

He came to his feet heavily, his face grim and sallow in the flickering, dim light. Something about the quiet, cathedral-like air of the vast, murmurous, gently-lit Control Center, with its soft-spoken, robed and priest-like attendants moving about on mysterious errands of their own amid this hushed shadowy silence, obscurely annoyed him.

“Tonguth—Shaman! Attend me in my quarters: we have matters to discuss,” he said abruptly, and stalked from the room, his cloak belling behind him like great wings.

The Warlord’s quarters were adorned with barbaric splendor. The wealth of a score of shattered worlds had been ravished by bloody hands to ornament his suite. In the domed ceiling, a sparkling chandelier of six thousand blue-white diamonds hung like a glittering, miniature galaxy of jeweled lights. Fabulous tapestries of pure gold thread, spun soft as silk by a secret process, whose secret was jealously guarded by the Blind Weavers of 61 Cygni IV, draped the wall. The walls themselves were paneled in rare, expensive winewood from the Garden Worlds of Further Perseus.

Carelessly strewn over chairs and couches were rich, fantastic-hued furs from Arlomma the Ice Planet. Low tables and taborets of exquisitely-carven silverwood stood about, scattered casually. Every square inch of their surface was worked into microscopic, elaborately sculpted friezes and designs by the six-armed Spider Men of Golnoth and Beldanarba. They bore gorgeous goblets of rare fruits, glitteringly jeweled platters of cold meats and pastries, so delicately spiced and sauced as to tempt even the most sophisticated gourmet of half a score of worlds.

Drask paid no attention to these fabulous luxuries. Snatching up a haunch of boarmeat, he paced and prowled restlessly, gnawing it, then tossing it aside to stain the glowing carpets from Valdorm.

“Sit, sit,” he muttered irritably, as his companions entered behind him. Tonguth gingerly lowered his fur-clad bulk, to sit tailor-fashion on bright cushions before a low food-laden table.

“Eat—drink—we have matters to solve,” Drask said.

Tranquilly seating himself in a tall chair of organic crystal, the shaman tucked both hands in his wide sleeves and watched Drask’s restless pacing with calm eyes in which contempt flickered momentarily.

Tonguth carved off a slice of Chadorian venison with his belt-knife, wiped the blade clean on his fur kilt, and sheathed the blade, pouring a goblet of red-gold Netharna ale. He waited patiently for his Master to speak his thoughts. Tonguth’s mind, in some ways as simple and single-purposed as that of the Warlord, also shared something of the detachment and philosophic calm of the shaman. He had the true barbarian’s indifference to future worries … the problems of the moment, the troubles here and now, sufficed to occupy his thoughts. He had, also, the barbarian’s iron patience, content to wait for future worries to come, rather than nervously anticipating them long before their inevitable arrival.

The ale and venison were delicious, and his long hours of sweaty labor in overseeing the loading of the fleet had made him famished. His obvious gusto as he attacked the food clashed with the Warlord’s nervous temper, more than did Abdekiel’s impassive tranquility.

“If you can leave your swinish guzzling, oaf,” Drask snarled, “we’ll get down to the matters impending. Shaman! You were present when that green bitch of Malkh dared voice her threats to me. And you know that every passing second of time carries us closer to the limit she set on our roving.”

“Yes, Great One.”

“Yonder black dog was whimpering in his kennel somewhere in the maze of Djormandark at the time, but he has doubtless heard. Three and one quarter light-years from Xulthoom, that is the distance! If we venture that far, She will strike, or so the voice declared.”

Tonguth wiped his greasy jowls with the back of his hand. “Yet you are going on, Master?”

Drask laughed harshly.

“Aye, by all the gods! Space cannot have two Masters—either I am Lord, or that female witch is Mistress. But what nags and niggles at my mind is why … why does She now, after centuries of silence and indifference, lift Her hand against the Rovers?”

“Lord, are we wise to continue on in the face of Her anger … ?” Tonguth ventured.

Drask exploded. “Are you wise to flaunt your puling cowardice in the face of my anger, you black-bristled pig?”

Red-faced, the hulking Chieftain scrambled to his feet, going for his sword.

“No man questions my courage—” he roared.

“You dare draw your steel to me, insolent dog?” Drask thundered, livid to the lips, one hand clawing for the butt of his deadly laser-gun.

“Anger solves no problems, my Lords,” Abdekiel’s cold, suave voice interposed, icy contempt scathing in his purring tones. Drask whirled, panting.

“None of your gutless maxims, you croaking vulture!” He lifted the jewel-set laser, its cold black eye staring at Abdekiel’s imperturbable face. The shaman lifted one soft yellow hand.

“You see what your enemies have brought you to, Lord Drask? Think. One of your chieftains lies rotting in the vaults of Djormandark Keep, dead by his own hand, palsied with terror—terror induced by either Calastor’s clever science, or Niamh’s age-old magic. Now you have been goaded to the brink of slaying two more of your councilors. Think, Lord!”

Drask subsided slowly, sinking across a great, canopied bed. He let the pistol drop, and gestured wearily for wine. Tonguth slid his blade back into its sheath.

“I beg your pardon humbly, Sire,” he began.

“Enough,” Drask said. “Pour me wine—and guzzle some yourself. Let us conserve our strength for battling our enemies. I am short of temper … but I am possessed by the feeling we are walking into a trap! Yet I dare not—cannot permit myself to show fear of this green monster. Has She allied herself with the powers of Parlion? If so, why—in the name of the Eleven Hells?”

He gulped wine thirstily, staining his purple leather tunic. Sloshing the liquor about in the half-empty cup, he stared moodily into it, as if he hoped to read therein the face of future things.

In the thoughtful silence that ensued, Tonguth blundered.

“The shaman here claims all Calastor’s magic is illusion and mirage, and such-like shadows of the mind. This Green Lady … perhaps Her sorcery is the same, mind-shadows without substance. If this be so, Master, why should you fear to—”

“Fear? Never use that word to me, you spawn of slime-pits! I fear neither man, beasts, nor howling ghost—nor have I, since first my mother whelped me! Fear is for such as you, black dog, puking in your dirty beard at the first hint of something your dull wits cannot understand!”

Tonguth flushed, bristling, a growl starting in his great throat. Abdekiel’s keen wits noted that whatever master-psychologist was at work here had indeed worked his black arts well. Never before would Tonguth have dared show by word or sign the least token of anger against Drask’s lashing tongue, but now … He rose smoothly, to interpose an adroit, soothing word—

In that moment, the alarm shrieked.

Not the little bell that summoned the watch, or called men to stations—this was the great, iron-throated monster that called only when the fleet was under attack, and it was loud enough to wake the dead from their dusty sleep!

The three raced into the control dome, Drask and Tonguth cursing—and, on the threshold, they froze.

The mighty screen showed a sight fearful enough to chill any man’s gusto.

Ahead was a broad sweep of space, jeweled with winking stars. Dead-center glowed softly a small yellow sun, with the tiny green crescent of their target, the Nucleus-world, hanging pendant to it. But between the fleet and the yellow star—

There were seven of them, black serpentine shapes hovering in the chill vacuum of deep space on stupendous, slowly-beating wings, fanged like world-huge bats of space. In that endless, dizzy moment, as reason swayed and tottered on the red brink of madness, Abdekiel somehow found time to wonder what those giant bat-wings beat against, in the airless void? Light-wavicles, perhaps, or even quanta-bundles … he knew not … but knew at a glance that these seven monsters were in motion, sliding ponderously through the stars directly at the Barbarian fleet… .

“Space-dragons!” Tonguth whispered. “I have heard legends of them, but never saw them in the flesh till now. Their wing-span must be a full million miles! Look at those mouths … vast enough to engulf a moon at a single gulp!”

“It is not possible … space-life,” the shaman hissed, face draining to a sickly, dead hue. “Their bodies must be mailed and armored with fantastic density, to endure the biting cold of the airless void.”

“Those wings are vast enough to enshadow a world,” old Gorm moaned from his control console. “What shall we do, Lord? My radarscopes give but a blur of ‘noise’—but vision alone tells me they are traveling straight towards us, and at a speed equal to our own. Shall we turn aside?”

“Not yet—not yet!” Drask’s voice rang harshly against the throbbing silence. “We turn aside for nothing! Man the laser-cannons! Perhaps we can blast them out of space!”

“They will be upon us in another instant,” Shangkar growled, clasping his axe futilely, eyes blazing with desperate fury.

Long snake-necks extended, eyes blazing venomous green fire, fanged maws gaping open, the seven space-dragons closed with the nomad-fleet—and half a hundred laser-cannons bellowed with incandescent fury, ravening beams of raw energy pouring through the void, lighting half a solar system with their blasts of inconceivable heat.

No substance known in all the mighty Universe of Stars could withstand such an assault for more than seconds. The massive shield of a planet would itself vomit forth stupendous plumes of incandescent gas before those batteries of disintegrating force.

The space-pirates held their breaths, waiting, hoping—

Then panic truly struck.

For the dragons came imperturbably on, in the face of the blinding beams of naked energy. Not a single league-long scale of their impregnable bodies was injured by the dazzing fury of the rays!