The Star Magicians

12. TO THE GREEN STAR

ONE SPLIT SECOND before the force-globe winked out of material existence, Calastor’s superbly developed mind sensed the oncoming transition. It was a subtle thing—a gathering electric tension in the air, as if the sensory tendrils of his mentality brushed against an event rushing upon them out of the impenetrable mystery of Future Time.

His arms closed protectively about the girl as the ship seemed to vanish from about them. And, even in the suspense and terror of this flashing moment, he was very aware of the warmth of her cheek against his face, of the soft vibrant curve of her strong young body braced against his own, of the heady, intoxicating perfume of her ashen-silver hair in his nostrils, and the muffled thunder of her pulse, rising to match his own.

When the sphere flickered into being about the Warlord, he exploded in a spasm of rage. Lashing out with clubbed fists against his immaterial prison, he encountered—unyielding nothingness. Then, leveling the drawn laser gun still clasped in one fist, he fired full against the curve of glass-like force. The dazzling pencil of energy met the insubstantial surface of the glistening bubble of force—and shattered back in a stinging shower of foot-long sparks that seared the flesh of Drask’s hands, arms and thighs setting his fur cloak to smoldering in a dozen places. With a curse of pain, he dropped the dead pistol, slapping at his furs. The pistol struck the curve of the force-bubble, and slid down it to tangle his feet.

The reaction of the others formed variations on Drask’s—with the single exception of the wise old Magister of Parlion. He alone of them all knew what was happening. He, singly, retained his unruffled serenity of mind, the urbane calm of his demeanor unbroken even when the ship and space itself seemed to flash out of existence around his sphere. The others gave way to their emotions—Tonguth blubbering in the clasp of superstitious terror, kicking and fighting against the unyielding, impalpable walls of their globular prisons; the shaman, helplessly frozen in a terror of utter despair, recognizing the presence of a magical power a billion years beyond his own grasp of the art, shrinking into a quivering huddle on the floor of his orb, face hidden in his fat, waxen-pale hands. He moaned and sobbed in the last extremity of panic, awaiting his inevitable doom.

When the five spheres flashed out of the material plane, the six prisoners seemed to have left the bounds of time behind them, as well as space. For a mind-numbing succession of overlapping sense-impression besieged their staggering intellects, seemingly without interval.

First, there was a moment of terrible vertigo, as the pull of the battleship’s artificial gravity ceased to exert its influence upon their bodies. They seemed to hang in utter weightlessness for a long, timeless moment—

A sensation of inconceivably intense blackness—

A moment of bitter, absolute cold—

The giddy feeling of speed—as if they flashed with some incomprehensible velocity beyond belief, from one extremity of space to its antipodes—

Then a dazzling instant of—did their consciousness ebb into sleep, for a flashing moment, as a candle flickers and is extinguished by rushing speed? For when they regained awareness again, their lightning-swift flight had ended, and the five globes seemed to hover above a strange, dim world… .

A garden-girt, twilit meadowscape revolved before their vision as they floated … rolling hills and gentle, grassy plains where strange flowers nodded under fantastic, slowly undulating trees. Green-plumed birds sang above sparkling jade-lipped fountains. Air-lotus floated, drifting on the perfumed breeze, high above jewel-pebbled paths. Young girls with calm, dreaming faces, and clad in shadowy green, vaguely monastic robes, played chaste games among the towering boles of tall flowering trees with green-furred trunks whereon hybrid, serpentine vines wriggled slowly. It was a scene of haunting, mystic, dream-like beauty … lulling, serene, untroubled, towards which they drifted gradually. Above arched a dim sky like a stupendous inverted hollow cup of dimmest jade … the fairy-like planet swam in shadowy, weirdly green twilight …

In the curve of Calastor’s arm, Lurn gasped faintly.

“Malkh! —But it cannot be! The Planet of Green Magic lies three score light-years from the Nucleus-world. It would take weeks to traverse the distance—”

Galastor smiled. “The Goddess, it seems, has means to escape the inconvenience of obedience to the natural laws of time and space,” he observed.

Then, as they floated on above the turning sphere, the flashing minarets of Diomahl, the City of Jade, rose before them in the dreaming twilight. Scintillant walls of smooth green glass encircled the small capital of this paradisical worldlet. Swelling domes of green crystal glowed in the waning light. And everywhere fantastic and enormous jewels flashed and sparkled from door-lintel, arch and rooftop, peak and wall and spire.

From his sphere, Drask stared down, smiling wolfishly. Cupidity gleamed in his hawk-eyes, extinguishing even fear, before so lavish a display of wealth—incredible wealth, if, indeed, those giant crystals were truly emeralds as they seemed. He tried to estimate their worth, but surrendered in the vain attempt, his imagination reeling. Some of the crystals were as tall as a full-grown man.

Now they fell slowly through misty dimness, their force-bubbles drifting down to touch lightly upon the emerald sward as gently as wafting snowflakes. And, at the touch, the hard, impenetrable fields of force against which neither fist nor laser had achieved a thing—vanished. Stumbling a little in the pull of gravity, they stood in the mystic green glow and stared about them.

They stood in faerie gardens wreathed and hung with dim coils of green mist. Weird, phosphorescent blossoms burned with cold fires among the shadowy bushes. No sound disturbed the silence of these idyllic groves. No wind ruffled the dreamy pools of limpid jade, bordered by enormous gauze-petaled flowers and drooping, feathery willows.

Calastor stood quietly, drinking in the twilit loveliness of the scene, his arm still about Lurn’s white shoulders. Seeing him, Drask flushed, one hand clawing at his holster. But the pistol had fallen from his hand earlier to the bottom of the globe, and must have vanished with the orb of force.

With shattering suddenness, a silvery, mocking voice, inhumanly sweet, inhumanly cold, spoke from vacant air at his side:

“Here we use no pistols, Barbarian, nor are machines of any purpose welcome on this world.”

Drask tensed, eyes probing the shadowy garden as if to spy among the gloomy shrubbery a concealed transmitter. His action was automatic. He knew the gulf of interstellar space itself formed no barrier to that chill, sardonic voice … for it was the same voice that had spoken to him in the mighty hall of Djormandark, on far-distant Xulthoom.

“However, I have a curious desire to look upon the mighty Conqueror who flouted my commands. Advance, Barbarian. I will speak to you in the Jade Tower … enter Diomahl My city without … fear.”

A peal of crystal laughter followed the last word, which the voice emphasized with cruel irony.

Although the fantastic flight across space had all but numbed his sense of terror, Tonguth’s eyes bulged as the silvery voice spoke out of empty air.

“An ill omen … ill, indeed,” he rumbled dully, shaking his great head like a shaggy ox. “As the Book of Jarsha warns: ‘A voice is heard, where none are seen to speak’ … what is the rest? How does it go—?”

“Be silent, dog,” Drask muttered, but Calastor’s calm voice rose behind them, softly quoting the ominous verse:

“A voice is heard, where none are seen to speak.

An Eye beholds, though walls may intervene.

A Hand shall smite, though thousands stand to guard—”

“Babble,” Drask snarled. “We are set against a cunning enemy, not some superstitious Terror from an ancient book!”

“An ancient … prophetic … book, Drask of the Varkonna,” the aged Magister of Parlion commented softly. And, at the same moment, in the minds of each occurred a memory that weirdly matched the verse Calastor had just quoted.

The Voice that had spoken to them from empty air in the garden … the emerald Eye that had blazed up at Drask from the shadowy hall of the black castle on Xulthoom … and the moon-vast Hand that had shattered through the ranks of the warfleets in the depths of space!

“COME.”

The Voice called again, in ringing tones that set their feet in motion despite mind or will. In a dreamlike trance, the conflict between them forgotten, the Warlord and his two men, Calastor, the girl and the Magister of Parlion set off through the weird green darkness of the garden.

Bell-shaped domes of dim glass and slender minarets of the City of Jade sparkled before them above the dark tree-tops. They made for the city in mutual silence. In truth, they walked through the very heart of silence, for a tranquil stillness reigned undisturbed in this enchanted oasis … silence somehow made palpable, as if underscored by the faint liquid music of little streams, the languid, silken rustle of graceful, long-leaved bushes and the occasional ghostly patter of small animal feet among the pools of inky shadow cast by the vague trees. Drask, Tonguth and Abdekiel cast uneasy glances in the velvet gloom as they walked.

Their vague unease grew stronger. They felt the pressure of invisible eyes peering craftily at them from bough and bush. Mocking echoes of half-heard laughter whispered from the shadows, lifting their nape-hair and sending a tingling chill of fear up their spines.

Tonguth, staring over his shoulder at the sudden rustling of a bush, walked straight into the fluttering embrace of a giant flower the height of a man. The enormous bell-shaped chalice of the blossom burst at his touch, drenching him from head to foot in a cold, stinging, dewy cloud of perfumed nectar. The heavy, cloying scent clung to his wet furs, making him wrinkle his nostrils in distaste at the dainty sweetness that hung about him—and rousing another peal of whispered, elfin mirth from the shadow-shrouded garden.

Drask growled at Tonguth warningly … and then Abdekiel floundered into a similar mishap. Since the globes of force had snatched them from the control room of the nomad fleet flagship, the shaman had shrunken in upon himself. The cold, acid force of his mind had withered, ebbed. His great bald Buddha-face of yellow fat had shriveled. Now, as he stumbled along, mumbling to himself, a sudden start of superstitious terror flayed him as he saw a nodding clump of waxen lily-pale flowers whose pallid blossoms turned slowly as he passed … swiveled as if to watch him. Turning to gape with terror at this unearthly sight he walked into a tree with stunning force.

Tonguth stopped short, running a dry tongue over dry lips. He gripped his sword-hilt so tightly his knuckles whitened from the pressure.

“I … could swear that tree was not there, just a moment before,” he said hoarsely.

“No, it was not,” Calastor agreed gravely.

Running a flabby hand over his bruised face, the shaman turned haggard eyes on them.

“She … plays with us … like a great emerald cat… .” he whispered.

Then a soft, half-heard music began … a liquid rippling as from some insubstantial, airy harp. The sleepy tune drifted about them gently, caressingly. They could almost discern a pattern in the melody … but never quite. It seemed to draw them forward … forward… . The hypnotic music pulled their stumbling feet on, as the trees gave way and the sparkling crystal gates of Diomahl, the City of Green Magic, lay open before them.

The music rose to a surge of invisible harps—and with it a dense, emerald fog enshrouded them, cutting off their sight. Calastor reached out through the blinding mists that swirled and boiled about them, struck through with drifted rays of green radiance … and felt Lurn clasp his hand.

“I—cannot—see!” the Warlord said, raggedly.

“Do not move, or we will lose each other. Remain calm,” the serene voice of the Magister advised. Although they stood still, so violently did the green smoke whirl and wheel about them that they seemed to feel the giddy vertigo of some unseen motion. And then—

One second they were stumbling and staggering in the spinning world of green mist; in the next instant it was whipped away, vanishing into—nowhere. Dazed, blinking, they looked about them.

The garden was—gone!

They stood in the center of a great domed hall whose faceted walls of sheerest emerald lifted above them into vague, infinite heights. Far above their heads, the vaulted roof was lost in thronged shadows. The walls of the vast empty hall shimmered with ghostly pale light, as if the stupendous chamber were carven from the hollow heart of some inconceivable super-emerald.

The immense acre of floor was paved in some mirror-like, glistening, translucent green stone in which tiny star-like atoms of light sparkled in microscopic galaxies.

Now the light strengthened. They could see that the emerald walls were faintly veined, like marble, with a dim tracery of thread-thin gold … a sprawling web of glittering light that spread over the crystal facets of the wall like some weird arabesque, some monstrous labyrinth of glowing lines, spelling out a cosmic riddle, or tracing the potent figures of some galactic Pentacle of Power over the entire inner surface of the vast room… .

It held their eyes—even the attention of the serene Magister. The pattern seemed almost recognizable, gripping their fascinated attention, forcing their eyes to trace and retrace the curious, near-meaningful angles of the golden maze, therein to read the secret meaning of the design whose structure and pattern just barely seemed to elude their minds, a meaning that hovered on the borders of conscious thought, like a half-forgotten Word of stupendous import that trembled almost on the tips of their tongues.

A burst of crystal laughter rang against their concentration, shattering tt to a thousand shards of broken thought.

The chiming bells of icy amusement shocked them like a sudden sluice of chill water, snapping the thread of their thought, breaking abruptly the weird, hypnotic pull of the wall-pattern, and they spun about to see—

Her.

“You are welcome to Diomahl,” said the Goddess of Green Magic.