The Star Magicians

1. SCARLET SANDS

ON THE SIXTH PLANET of Havory 36, a binary star in the Wyvern Cluster, the last scene of a tense drama was being acted out on the bloody sands of the arena, to the south of Argion City.

The double sun blazed down on crowded tiers of stone seats, and flashed from barbaric ornaments of rare metals, the gem-studded hilts of rapier and laser gun, the rich banners of stiff silk blazoned with Clan heraldries. The throng that filled the stone benches was mostly composed of the conquerors, the Star Rovers and their captive women. But here and there among the crowd could be seen a few native Argionids in their distinctive feather-robes … traitors and quislings who joined the star-traveling barbarians at their triumphal games, hoping to curry favor with the new lords of Argion planet.

Although the crowd had been drinking heavily and the men were hoarse from shouting, all was still in this suspenseful moment. The throng gazed down in delicious anticipation … waiting for the moment of death, when the bright sands below would drink hot red blood.

In the center of the arena, the naked Argionid swordsman blinked sweat and blood from his eyes, narrowing them against the sun-glare. His gaze was riveted on the monster thard and his brawny hand tightened on the worn hilt of his longsword, knuckles whitening. A dozen paces from where he stood, the beast crouched, belly scraping the sand, motionless save for the uncontrollable twitching of its twenty-foot tail, which bristled with thorny spikes. Its brass-colored, bird-like beak gaped hungrily, foam dripping from scaled jaws, flaming eyes glazed with fury.

The Argionid was superb: a blond titan, thewed like the bronze statue of the hero Lionus that stood before the arena gate. Although little more than a youth, he was tall, and for all his well-muscled bulk he was lithe and quick-footed as a jungle-cat. For seventeen Carina Standard minutes now the youth had successfully evaded the frenzied lunges of the monster reptile. The marks of his agile bladework showed: dribbles of green blood marked the thard’s blue-and-yellow-mottled hide. And along its back, where the spinal ridge of jagged horns rose bristling, several had been sheared away. The young swordsman himself had received only one wound, a narrow slash across the brow. Slight though it was, it would prove his undoing, for the blood was running down into his eyes, blinding him. He blinked again, as the scene swam in a red haze before him.

In the stone rows, the thronged barbarians held their breath, waiting—for, despite his valiant efforts, the longsword was useless against the giant strength of the thard, mailed in tough scales that were proof against anything less than a sizzling laser-bolt.

This the swordsman knew well. His only hope lay in tiring the monster. And this seemed an empty hope, for the jungle dragons of Argion planet were tireless engines of muscle and bone.

The blood flowed steadily, trickling into his eyes, the salt-stinging gore drawing tears that blurred his vision to a swimming haze. He blinked his eyes clear again, knuckles tautening on the sweaty sword-pommel. At any second now the thard would charge again …

Above, in the royal box, Drask reclined at his ease on the satin cushions, half his cynical attention on the tragic drama unfolding below, and half on the trembling young girl beside him, whose nude breasts he was idly fondling. A philosopher in his rough way, the Warlord of the Star Rovers mused on the changeful ways of Fate. In this moment of time the young Argionid swordsman was filled with robust life, bursting with manly vigor in the full hot morning of his youth … in the next moment, his splendid, virile body would be an awful bundle of bloody rags, crushed in the inexorable jaws of the slavering thard.

We are toys at the feet of the gods, he thought.

So it was, too, with the pale maiden at his side. But yesterday she had been the proud princess of a free world, daughter of the 76th Lord Argion, reigning merchant-prince of this trader’s world, heiress to a magificent fortune with half the princelings of the Near Stars bidding for her hand. Then, in a moment, all had been changed forever. Out of nowhere had come the star-wandering nomad fleets of the dread barbarians—the fury of battle, the ravening flame of planet-mounted laser-batteries—the buffeting thunder of mobile ship-to-planet hydrolithium bombs—and today she was the listless slave of the conqueror, a plaything, the toy of a moment, to be cast aside after he had had his amusement. And so sudden had the change struck, she still seemed dazed, stunned.

Drask’s half-smile deepened. The fleet had struck without a moment’s warning from the black abyss of the Rift. Within hours Argion planet had fallen, her obsolete defense-network drifts of incandescent metal-vapor rising from craters of fused stone and liquid steel. And now the princess sat, huddled beside him as one in a dream, eyes blank, limbs flaccid. He would not keep her long, he thought… .

And yet she was a lovely creature. Her young breasts were like warm white fruit, soft beneath his hard hands. He stroked her slender body—as suddenly the stillness was rent by a great shout.

The thard struck like a thunderbolt. And the blood-blurred vision of the blond swordsman played him wrong. His magnificent young body dangled now from the scissor-beak, its nakedness clothed in dripping scarlet. As the crowd thundered with earth-shaking approval, the jungle-dragon ripped the body into shreds and lifted its own deafening roar in challenge to the many-throated thunder.

Huddled by Drask, the girl shrank back, her cold flesh crawling with revulsion, as if the ring-laden hands that touched her body were dripping with the gore of her slaughtered countrymen.

As the Rover guards baited the thards attention away to the other side of the arena, removed the mangled corpse and brought out the next “rebel” for his punishment, the Warlord let his attention return to the girl. Eyes dilated and nostrils pinched and white, she stared at the scarlet thing that only moments before had been a vigorous young male.

“A friend?” Drask asked, cynically. His lips twitched. “Perhaps—a lover? Ah, I sympathize—he had a fine body, for a youth.”

Her blue eyes blazed, the stunned languor of shock vanished now.

“You filth,” she said.

Drask smiled thinly.

In the dazzling sunlight below, the Rover chieftain, Tonguth, consulted a parchment scroll. Sweating in his leather tunic and orange cloak beneath the dazzling light of the two suns, the rough-bearded barbarian downed another tankard of chilled ale and blinked at his list. The Warlord had reclared him Master of the Victory Games as special recognition for his bravery during the Siege of Argion, but Tonguth would rather have lolled in the cool shade of patterned awning on the stone benches. His sweat-soaked leather and iron garments chaffed him raw. Grumbling a curse, he rinsed his thirsty throat with another tankard of sour ale, and blinked as the next victim stumbled out of the cages and into the open arena. Glancing at the slim, tattered figure below, he bellowed the man’s name.

“Perion of North Hollis, piper to the court of the late Darion, Lord Argion, rebel and traitor. Turning from his tunes to red murder, the Piper slew six Star Rovers with a stolen sword during the capture of the palace. How say you, brothers?”

As one man, the Rovers massed along the climbing rows of stone benches raised sword, axe, mace, laser gun or Haemholtz coagulator, and thundered one word: “DEATH”!

The tiny figure below seemed to cringe beneath the weight of that many-tongued cry. But then it straightened, preened, and with a gallant, rascally impudence, swaggered boldly out into the full view of the thard. The monster snorted blood from its throat, and tensed.

Drask smiled thinly, rather admiring the little troubadour’s impudent—and imprudent—courage. Courage in any form was, in fact, his only god—and it seemed almost a pity it must be crushed out in a red smear. However, one cannot hold a conquered planet unless the example made of the heroes who have defended it is so terrible as to daunt potential liberators. And the Rovers were true barbarians: they wanted to see blood, and pain, and panic. Still, Drask watched the small figure with more than common attention.

Reaching the very center of the arena, the small minstrel paused, struck a pose, flourished his ragged many-colored cloak—and bowed to the throng. He doffed his little plumed cap to Lord Drask. In so doing, its broken cock-feather dabbled in a pool of the last victim’s blood, a touch of poetic irony that pleased Drask’s sense of artistry and drama. The throng, pleased by this gesture and the fellow’s daredevil impudence, applauded noisily.

But the thard was still mad with bloodlust, and impatient for the kill. A long ripple of tension ran along the rows of men and woman, a visible thing, as stalks of neocorn register the pass of the wind’s viewless hand. The dragon froze immobile, save for the twitch of its tail. The spectators drew in their breath.

Tonguth, as Master of the Games, tossed a slim rapier into the arena.

“Here, tunester,” he bawled hoarsely. “Make music with this!”

The blade fell in a glittering arc of sun-struck steel to the hot red sand, to thud a few yards from the bedraggled figure in motley. And then the Star Rovers saw something unprecedented in all their crimson annals of loot, conquest and rapine. The ragged minstrel struck a pose—spurned the weapon with his foot—and turned his back on it, and on the thard.

And he turned a cartwheel.

In the astounded silence, belly scraping the coarse red sand, the thard inched forward, its burning flame-colored eyes fastened on the slim capering figure of its next victim. Even Drask held his breath, eyes riveted on the lonely little figure dancing on the edge of death.

Perion turned a somersault.

The thard paused, hesitant, wavering. Man-things either ran screaming before him, or stood with naked steel awaiting his charge. They never ignored him …

Drawing a dirty kerchief from his pocket-pouch, Perion waved it at the stands to catch the spectators’ attention—then slipped it over his eyes, fastening it with nimble fingers behind his head. Then, blindfolded, he began fumbling over the steaming scarlet sand towards the frozen thard, feeling his way along with first one foot extended and then the other, tapping his way, hands extended like a blind beggar.

Like a thunderbolt, the thard struck—

And missed! Perion evaded the beast’s lunge with the nimble grace of a dancer. Raising a blinding storm of sand, the thard halted, turned—struck—

And missed again. Again the slim, ragged figure dodged, blindly.

On the parapet of the arena, burly Tonguth stared, jaws agape, as the minstrel played with the furious monster, evading its ferocious charges as easily as a clown, on Year’s End Day, dodges the paper dragons in the festive, torch-lit streets.

“Pick it up, fool,” Tonguth muttered, gritting his teeth. “Pick up your sword—fight!” Such courage was crazed— foolhardy—suicidal—yet even rough Tonguth felt a glow of admiration for the sort of man who could clown and play while teetering on the brink of sudden death.

Now, as if tiring of his game, the piper plucked the kerchief from his eyes and stood, boldly daring the panting, enraged thard to strike again. But it refused to move, standing still although trembling with frustrated rage, foam slavering down its gasping jaws.

Then he turned his back on it.

And sat down, tailor fashion.

Drask—even Drask, terrible Warlord of the Star Rovers—gaped and swore with amazement, struck with the sheer daredeviltry of the little man.

The thard moved, then. Again it hurled its sinuous blue-mailed body at the taunting figure—but, as if warned by some sixth sense, Perion flipped head-over-heels in an acrobat’s leap … and landed astride the thard’s shoulders.

For one long, breathless moment, the beast hovered, dazed, as if unable to believe that such audacity could exist in so small and puny a creature as this spindly-legged manling. In the next moment it exploded in a frenzy of pure rage. Leaping, whirling, lashing the sand with its barb-spined tail, the thard cavorted madly around and around the arena, raising dense, choking clouds of sand in a mad attempt to dislodge the thing that clung with uncanny ease to its back.

A gust of wind blew the dust cloud away, treating the astounded throng to an even more fantastic sight. For now, instead of blindly clinging for his very life to the back of the whirling, frenzied monster—the minstrel was actually riding the dragon like a bucking horse! Flapping his plumed cap against its heaving flanks and beating his skinny heels into the thard’s ribs, the little minstrel rode, clinging with one hand to the beast’s pig-like ear.

It was then that someone in the crowd—Drask never knew who it was—cried out in a loud, ringing voice, “Free him! Life for the juggler!”

In a moment, other voices took up the lone cry. The crowd, its brutal admiration for pure bravery touched by the gallant spectacle, burst into a thunderous roar of approval. Whistles, cheers, war-cries, cat-calls—a wild cacophony of noise applauded the minstrel’s feat.

“Free him!”

“Life! Free the piper!”

“Amnesty, Warlord!”

Drask rose to his feet, stilling the mob with lifted hands. When all was silent in the arena, save for the muffled thunder of the wildly raging beast—he shouted his answer.

“The voice of the Rovers has spoken! I give life to the little man, and free amnesty for his crimes—if he can get out of there alive!”

An explosion of laughter followed his words as he sank back into his seat with rare good humor. And far below, still riding the maddened jungle-dragon, the tattered jester himself answered in thin, reedy tones:

“A thousand thanks, my Lord Conqueror! And behold— Perion comes!”

With those words, the minstrel sprang to his feet, hopped down from the tharc’s shoulders to the sands. The slow-witted reptile continued, for a time, its dance of rage, as Perion, unnoticed, ran across the arena to a spot against the curving wall and just below the royal box where the Warlord and his girl-slave sat. Then, stooping, Perion doubled like a coiled spring and flung himself into the air. It was a fantastic leap; only a trained acrobat could have accomplished it, or a man with the steely, disciplined muscles of a dancer—and even so, the lithe juggler almost failed. His fingertips just grazed the rim of the wall—grazed—slipped—and for a moment that lasted like an eternity, he hung, dangling suspended by the fingers of one hand— “It sees you!” the Rovers shouted.

Indeed, the slow-witted thard had only now spotted the motley-clad form of its tormentor as it clung, spider-like, against the arena wall. With golden eyes that flamed with the madness of frustrated rage, it flashed across the full length of the field, to crash against the massive wall of yellow Argionid granite like a giant battering-ram of living flesh—just as Perion, with one last supreme effort, drew himself up over the brink, tumbling into the box to huddle panting with effort at Lord Drask’s booted feet.

Then, his maddening quarry completely escaped, the jungle-dragon went mad in very truth. It battered against the wall again and again, a hissing, clawing, squalling Fury, screaming like a steam whistle, raking the wall with razor-claws that ripped long, raw grooves, cut deep in the solid stone.

“Guards! Drive the beast back from the wall!” Tonguth bellowed.

Rovers stationed along the arena’s brink to keep order beat the infuriated, squalling thard back with their electric whips. The throng went wild. Women screamed and ran for safety; Drask shouted commands that went unheard in the confusion; whips cracked and sizzled across the monster’s tautly up-stretched neck, spitting foot-long sparks of blue flame and cross-hatching its hide with a black grill of burned scars that filled the air with the stifling stench of charred reptilian flesh.

Finally there came the dull, droning whine of the Rover’s dread coagulators. Beams of dim violet light speared down, fixing the monster in their vague glare. With a hoarse, almost human scream of agony, the dragon’s hold slipped. In its fury it had half climbed the wall and was nearly in the royal box, but now it slid thrashing down, hitting the sand with stunning force. Dazed it half-limped, half-dragged its wounded bulk away, then collapsed, dead from the beams that still played over it. The stench of ozone and burned flesh was nauseating.

An exhausted silence fell over the tiers of stone benches. Drask sank back into his chair.

Then the bundle of rags between his heels unfolded and merry brown eyes set in a hard, wizened, swarthy and pinched elf-face twinkled slyly up at him. He gaped, astonished.

“Good time of day unto my gracious Lord,” said Perion the Piper.