Tower Of The Medusa

10. STEEL AGAINST STEEL!

Within the secret passage, Caola led Kirin through unbroken darkness. The sudden surge of amazing strength wherewith the Earthling had battled against the mental forces of Pangoy had now ended, and he was drained of energy. His skull throbbed with red waves of pain; it rung like a beaten anvil. His arms and legs were numbed, drained of strength. Several times he stumbled and would have fallen had it not been for the quick-minded girl at his side, who supported him with strong arms. There was no time to rest. They must go forward.

The walls of the passage were thin. They could hear the banshee-scream of alarms, the ringing feet of steel warriors as they gathered to quench the fires that had turned the ruined laboratory of Pangoy into a blinding inferno. Obviously, the corridor beyond was thronged with their enemies. They could not yet emerge from the hidden passage concealed behind the walls. Caola did not know what to do.

She had explored much of the network of secret spy-ways that wound through the ancient citadel, but she was familiar only with a portion of them. She feared to go too far beyond her accustomed paths, lest they become lost in the maze of hidden passages. The only alternative was to sit here in the close darkness and wait for the halls to be cleared so they could come out through one of the secret doors, and that course would lose them their single slim advantage: time.

Half-fainting, Kirin slumped at her side, gasping for breath, knuckling his aching brows in dumb agony. He had suffered excruciatingly under the torments of the Mind Probe, and his body had taken an unmerciful pummeling during his battle with the Nexian. He was in no condition to think clearly or to fight. To risk the corridors would be foolhardy.

“Why are we… just standing here?” he mumbled. The girl explained their predicament in brief words. He rubbed his temples, striving to use his wits.

“Do these passages… extend into the cells where… Doc and I were kept?”

“I do not know,” she confessed hesitantly. “I have never had reason to find out. Mostly, I have used the secret passages in the central part of the palace, to spy on the Witch Queen and her councils…”

“Well, now is as good a time as any,” he grunted. “Let’s see if they do.”

So they went forward in the pitch-darkness of the passages, and Caola desperately hoped her sense of direction would lead her rightly. It was risky to use the spy-eyes when the halls were filled with people, and one corridor looked very much like another. Still, there was nothing to do but try…

Doctor Temujin waited, fretful and anxious, for the return of Caola with some word as to the whereabouts and the fate of Kirin. Time seemed to stretch out unendurably. He had no timepiece and hence could not correctly fudge the elapsed interval, but it seemed like long hours since she had left him behind.

Then came a disturbance. The shrill clangor of alarms, the crash of metal feet against the stone-paved stair. The shout of human voices. The tension of not knowing what was happening became unbearable. He gnawed the end of his mustache, wringing his fat hands, groaning at the suspense. For all he knew, Caola might have been captured and her mission revealed… for all he knew, Kirin might be in the corridor beyond, battling hopelessly against the horde of steel-clad titans who guarded this citadel of sorcery…

At last he could wait no longer, he must find out what was happening! Luckily, the slave-girl had brought him his slim ivory rod. He fondled it with loving hands. Not only was the device a powerful weapon, but a cunning tool with many uses.

He made certain adjustments to the controls in the hilt, muttering a potent mantrum under his breath as he did so. Then he reversed the wand so that its pointed end was directed towards his body. He released the power switch concealed in the handle.

A stream of invisible force enveloped him from head to foot. Carefully he turned his body so as to make certain that every part of his anatomy was bathed in the invisible rays that now emanated from the Rod of Power.

Had anyone been in the luxurious cell with him at the time, they would have been astounded at the miraculous change that passed slowly over the fat form of the little thaumaturge. His plump rotundity became ghostly and translucent. Through his limbs and torso an observer could have seen the dim outlines of walls and furniture. Slowly, his body became as transparent as air itself, until at length Temujin was completely invisible.

In this curious and temporary state, he was blinded. To him it seemed as if he stood in utter and unrelieved blackness. This was the natural result of the weird transformation caused by the high-energy rays emitted by his ivory instrument. The rays aligned the molecular structure of his component particles until the magnetic poles of his atoms were mono-directional. No longer did the photons of light rebound from the surface of his body, repelled by contact with the magnetic fields of his atomic structure. Now every atom pointed in a single direction, and the light that touched him passed through his body without hindrance. It was like opening the bunds upon a window: the slats all pointing in the direction of the light-source permit light rays to pass through the shuttered windows. Only the comparatively minute edges of the blinds catch and repel the light. Thus it was with Temujin’s body; the alignment of the magnetic poles made his flesh 99.99% invisible.

He padded swiftly to the door and fumbled across it until his fat fingers found the lock. Then he altered the setting of his wand and released a narrow stream of intense energy against the mechanism. Metal fused, glowed white, and flowed down the surface of the door in superheated droplets. He edged the door open slightly and squeezed out. Now he was in the hall. There should have been at least two of the metal robot guards stationed before the portal, but in his blinded condition he could not see them. It was a great drawback in the invisibility process that the retinas of his eyes were also rendered transparent to light under the effect of the ray. Light passed through his eyes without reacting upon the rod-and-cone mechanism of the organs. Alas, there was no help for it. He stood still and listened.

Straining his ears, he heard a high-pitched and almost inaudible burst of electronic “noise.” One of the robots was communicating to its companion the fact that the door they guarded was now partially open. He listened for the reply, and when it came he now formed a mental picture of the position of .he two automatons in relation to himself. Hence he stepped lightly around them and tip-toed off down the corridor in the direction of the alarm and clamor.

He sidled along one wall of the corridor, for he could never know when someone might come by, and not being able to see Temujin the stranger might very well collide with him if he were foolish enough to walk through the middle of the hall in his present blinded and invisible state. But few people walk along the far side of a hall, commonly preferring the clear space in the center. Hence, although several persons or automata went past him, none so much as brushed against the fat little wizard.

He came to a junction of two halls. Here, he remembered, a coiling flight of steps led down to a lower level. This was a tricky space to navigate in his blinded condition, but he went carefully, feeling his way with outstretched fingers wherever possible.

The stench of burning cloth and wood came to his nostrils. He heard men coughing and exclaiming. Someone had caused a fire in the further portions of the palace, that was obvious. He wondered if his friends could be the culprits, and if the fire was intended as a diversion.

A dim wavering light became visible.

Temujin froze, convulsed with shock. He knew the effect of the invisibility ray was strictly temporary. He dimly recalled from his studies that it generally lasted at least a half an hour before wearing off. Could he have allowed so much time to pass while he gingerly felt his way along? Or was the time element other than he remembered? He groaned a curse, if only he had paid closer attention to his classes in the Lesser Thaumaturgies!

There was no question about it, he was slowly becoming visible. The shadowy likeness of a huge hall was coming into being about him. He sprinted across the intersection of the corridors in order to gain the fullest possible advantage before coming to full visibility.

Then a harsh iron voice froze him cowering in his tracks. An amplified voice roared and echoed through the palace.

“The magician Temujin is missing from his cell, and the Earthling Kirin has somehow escaped, slaying the Lord Pangoy in his flight! All nobles and slaves are warned to watch for these escaped prisoners. The Earthling is not to be harmed, merely seized; but the magician Temujin is of no use to us and may be armed and dangerous. The fat man is to be shot down on sight, by order of the Queen!”

Temujin moaned an entreaty to several gods and waddled towards a tapestry-hung wall where he might be able to hide. Shot down on sight! Even as he quivered at the deadly flavor of those words, the entire rotunda sprang into full view and he looked down at his fat hands. They were firm and solid to the sight. He was no longer invisible…

And he heard the tramp of metal feet coming up the curving marble stair. He knew he could not reach the further wall in time. But he ran for it anyway…

And slipped and fell sprawling, just as the first robots came up the stair into the rotunda behind him.

Caola and Kirin had almost reached the luxurious cell wherein he and Doctor Temujin had been imprisoned hours or days before, when they heard the grim announcement that ran through every chamber of the giant citadel. Kirin’s jaw tightened grimly.

“How do you suppose the Doc got out?” he demanded. “Did you tell him about this network of secret passages? Maybe he went looking for one in the cell…”

The girl shook her head, tousling her tawny mane of loose hair. “I don’t think I even mentioned them to him,” she said. Suddenly she laid her hand on his arm. “What was that?” A hoarse squall of terror had sounded through the thin false wall from the spaces beyond.

“I don’t know,” he said tensely. “But it sounded like the Doc…”

Risking much, he dared a swift peek through the nearest spy-eye. There was always the danger that someone passing through the hall beyond might catch a glimpse of the lensed opening as it was momentarily visible when the eye was in use.

He looked out and saw the huge rotunda where corridors met and the stairwell ascended to this level. He saw Temujin sprawled in the center of the open area, facing a rank of robot warriors who had just mounted the stairs. He heard the almost-inaudible high-speed squeal of robotic speech and guessed that the lead robot was informing his fellows of the identity of the fat little human sprawled helplessly in their path. Even as he watched, Temujin brought his ivory wand up, pointing it at the commanding robot. The wand spat sizzling lightning! Blue fire snapped. Long hissing sparks crawled over the helmet-like face of the automaton. A muffled explosion thumped. Oily black smoke seethed from the jointures in the robot’s armor and the red glare of his vision-lenses died. The metal giant tottered on his feet and fell forward against the marble floor with a terrific crash of jangling metal.

“Let ‘em have it, Doc!” Kirin yelled. He thumbed the catch and a secret panel opened in the wall through which he sprang out into the rotunda, racing to the aid of the fat thaumaturge.

Wheezing, Temujin lurched to his feet as the file of robots came clanking down on him. His wand blazed electric fire, shattering the shoulder-joint of the foremost automaton. The metal casing shattered and the limb went flying. The maimed mechanical staggered into a comrade and jostled him from his stance. The metal man, flailing to regain his lost balance, crashed against the balustrade. Thin sculpted marble broke before his weight, hurling him over the edge. He fell to the landing below with a tremendous crash of rending steel.

Although he ached in every nerve and sinew, Kirin hurried to the side of the embattled thaumaturge. The Rod of Power was slow-working and could not hold the massed squadron of steel-clad war-machines at bay for long. And already the alarm was spreading—broadcast by one of the robots, no doubt, using a radio beam to contact the central command post of the palace forces. Again the magnified voice rang out through the citadel.

“The missing prisoners have been located on the Ninth Level, in the White Rotunda at the junction of corridors 9-delta and 11-beta. They are armed with energy weapons and are under attack by guard squadron 104. All units advance to block exits leading to those halls—”

“Good to see you in one piece, lad,” Temujin puffed, cocking a merry blue eye at the Earthling. “Sorry about all this fuss, though!”

“Forget it—wish I had my gun. Can you hold ‘em off, Doc? Caola is holding the panel open—there’s a secret passage in the wall right over there—”

“So that’s where you popped from! I was wondering!” Temujin broke off to blast one of the metal men to flying fragments with a bolt directed at the center of its steel thorax.

“Alas, I doubt if I can keep this up much longer,” he wheezed. “These rods are not inexhaustible, you know.”

“Quickly!” the girl called from the black opening in the wall. “This way—Azeera comes!”

“Let’s go, Doc,” Kirin snapped. “Back up towards the wall. Keep holding them off with your blast the best you can…”

“Hold, Earthling!”

The cold silver voice froze him in his tracks. He turned and saw a fearful sight. Azeera slowly melted into being out of thin air in the center of the rotunda. By whatever science miracle of the Ancients her materialization was accomplished, it was clearly no illusion. She was present in the flesh and wild with rage.

The cold inhuman beauty of her jade features was distorted into a carven mask of utter fury. Her eyes blazed with hatred. Her jet-black hair had burst loose from her slender coronet and floated about her head like a halo of black flames. The silken gown clung to every sinuous curve of her magnificent body, accentuating the lines of breast and hip and thigh with glittering silver fire.

Gone was the seductress, the alluring siren. This was Azeera, the tyrant queen of Zangrimar, terrible as a mad goddess in her rage, and armed with might. Kirin’s heart sank to behold her in her wrath.

As she held him at bay with the blaze of her witchery, he dimly heard the clank of steel-shod legions coming from either hall. They were trapped between three forces, and at the mercy of the Witch Queen. And he had no gun! How could mere mortal flesh do battle against hard steel?

And then, in the utter extremity of his need, that mysterious Other Presence within him woke once more. A tide of more-than-human power surged through his weary, battered body and aching brain. He felt a tingling flood of fresh vigor sweep through every cell and nerve and organ of his body. His mind became crystal clear, sharply focused. From hidden depths within him, that eerie command over mind forces awoke once again… the same force that had against all odds destroyed Pangoy the Nexian earlier. A boundless confidence filled him. How can flesh battle against steel…?

He answered his own unspoken question aloud.

“It can’t. But we can set steel against steel… !”

As Temujin and Caola regarded him with puzzled, almost frightened eyes, the Earthling straightened. The bright glory of a God flamed into being around him, like a visible aureole of Power.

He held out his hands against the oncoming horde of steel warriors. And then he struck.