Tower Of The Medusa

13. ZARLAK STRIKES

In a dark cavernous room far underground, lit by the cold flare of permabulbs, a gaunt man sat alone at a huge table of dark wood.

He was robed in dark glittering stuff. Black silks rustled crisply to every motion as he turned the leaves of the ancient book that lay before him on the table. Sequins of jewelled light winked and flashed as he turned the pages; they were sewn along the folds of the voluminous robes that cloaked him from men’s eyes.

His face was an oval of darkness beneath the enshadowing cowl of his robe. Only his eyes could be seen. They were grey and cold as ice, but fierce as flame. As he hovered immobile over a rune-scrawled page of the old manuscript book, only his eyes seemed to live. They burned and seethed with restless energy. A cold, subhuman cruelty was in their icy glare, and the hot banked fires of unholy and unscrupulous ambition.

The book over which the robed and masked figure bent so intently was old. A thousand centuries has passed since alien hands had inscribed those sheets of wrinkled yellowing leather with uncouth hieroglyphics. The book that lay before him on the mighty table was older than recorded human history. The river clay whereof men were someday to fashion bricks wherewith to raise the walls of Ur of the Chaldees was still fresh and wet when these crumbling pages were inscribed. The stones of Cheop’s pyramid still slept amid unbroken hills along the Valley of the Nile. The titanic glittering wall of ice that came grinding down across the world out of the ultimate and boreal north had but recently withdrawn into its fastnesses. Man was young, scarce more than a beast that had learned to stand erect and toy with tools. An aura of almost palpable age hung about the old book; it was impregnated with the dust of a hundred thousand years of slow time.

Whatever the veiled man had hoped to find in the ancient codex eluded him. With a bitter curse he closed the book and shoved it from him, and sat back in his great throne-like chair, brooding, eyes of cold fury inscrutable as they stared hungrily into the cavernous gloom of the subterranean chamber.

A sound behind him. The clink of steel on steel. A dark curtain was drawn to one side by a gnarled and claw-like hand. The black mouth of a tunnel was thus exposed, behind the hangings. From the entrance came forth into view a small, dwarfed figure clad in weird armor of steel. Fantastical in design, the armor was scrawled over with writhing dragons and snarling devil-heads. The dwarf was clad entirely in steel, save for his gnarled and twisted hands and his sallow, frog-like face.

He was incredibly ugly. His mouth was a broad lipless gash and his three eyes were glowing slits filled with evil malignant glitter. His skull-like head was devoid of hirsute adornment.

“Master!” he croaked. The robed figure turned to regard him.

“Speak!” the robed one commanded harshly.

“We have lost contact with Pangoy,” the Death Dwarf said. “His receptors went dead in the third quarter of the Hour of the Toad.”

“Death, or unconsciousness?” the Veiled One demanded.

“Death.”

The word echoed in the silence, fading away into dim whispers. The robed man with the black-masked face regarded the dwarf steadily, with eyes of cold grey flame. Zarlak, the Master of the Death Dwarves and Lord of Pelizon was filled with the bitterness of failure. The age-old book he had searched through fruitlessly and had just shaved aside had been his last hope. Ever since coming to this wilderness world, the Veiled One had striven for one purpose: to find the secret of the Iron Tower. He had searched the crumbling archives of the death cult, but in vain. Old rumors and whispers he had tracked down, but for naught. Now he sought in the ancient Books of Power for the key that would unlock the charmed and demon-guarded gates of the Iron Tower, and the Books had failed him.

The failure of his connection with Pangoy on Zangrimar was yet another disappointment. His mask hid the expression of rage and frustrate fury that writhed and snarled across his face. But his eyes blazed with unholy wrath and cruelty. The Dwarf was forced to turn his eyes away with a little shudder; the flaming fury in Zarlak’s gaze was beyond his endurance.

“Give me the tapes!” Zarlak said. Silently, the Dwarf handed his master a tangle of grey plastic ribbon, whereon black wavering lines were drawn. Zarlak slid them through his black-gloved fingers, studying them.

“The last recordings show that he surprised a slave girl in his quarters. As he was questioning her, the Earthling awoke and they fought. The Earthling, Kirin, seems to have slain Pangoy…”

“I can read the telemetry, fool,” Zarlak grated. He threw the tapes from him with a soundless snarl. Pangoy had been invaluable. The Nexian had never known that telepathic receptors had been surgically implanted in his brain-tissue before he had ever reached the planet Zangrimar. The Mind Wizard never knew he was an involuntary spy for Zarlak, Lord of Pelizon. Now his involuntary servitude was ended, and still Zarlak did not have the secret of the Iron Tower.

The Dwarf, Vulkaar, edged nearer.

“What now, Lord?” he whispered. The cold glare of Zarlak brooded on the gloom.

“Now the Earthling will come here, of course,” he said. “If he is able to escape the clutches of the Witch Queen alive, and gain his ship.”

“Will he be able to do so? The Witch is powerful…” the Dwarf, Vulkaar, said dubiously.

“So was Pangoy,” said Zarlak. “His mastery of the mental forces was extraordinary—which is why the Mind Wizards of Nex dispatched him to Zangrimar in the first place. Only one with his power could destroy Azeera before she plunged half a galaxy in war.” An invisible smile crawled across the masked lips of Zarlak. “The fool succumbed to her wiles despite his powers. He fell hopelessly in love with the Witch Queen… and she accepted him into her service, knowing what a weapon his mental powers would be. She never knew, nor did he, that his own brain broadcast to my receptors everything he saw or heard.”

Vulkaar cackled a peal of gloating laughter.

“That love was your doing, Master!”

“Yes.” Zarlak smiled. “It was a master-stroke. I was a novice in the Mind Schools of Nex in those days… when I learned Pangoy had been selected for the mission, I lured him to my cell and implanted the telepathic receptors within his brain. And hypnotized him so that he would lust for the Witch and fall under her spell. I took a chance, hoping that Azeera was still enough of a woman to be flattered by his adoration and accept his service, rather than having him slain. All went well, but now the Earthling has somehow overcome even a Mind Wizard…”

“Then you think this Kirin will escape from Zangrimar?” Vulkaar asked. The Master nodded.

“If he was strong enough to destroy the Nexian, he has a chance of eluding the grasp of the Witch Queen. And if he does, he will doubtless come to Pelizon.”

The sallow Dwarf in the fantastic steel armor mused thoughtfully on this. The Death Dwarves of Pelizon guarded the Iron Tower with an age-old fanaticism; no intruder could be permitted into the Tower; all were slain. But the Veiled One had lured Vulkaar from his vows and won his obedience. The Dwarf’s heart was a blazing crucible of greed and lust; by playing subtly on his greed, Zarlak had bound him to his service and shared the secret of his intentions with him. Vulkaar proved a precious ally. Together they were consumed with but a single wish: to rape the Iron Tower of its sacred treasure, the Medusa, and with the power of the Demon’s Heart, to gain mastery of many worlds. Vulkaar slavered at the thought: the Master had promised him gold… and women… Earthling women!

“What shall we do if he comes here, Master?”

“We shall lay a little trap and catch him in our snare,” the Lord of Pelizon replied.

“Before he reaches the Tower?”

The master laughed. His voice dropped to a soft, silken purr:

“No, you fool. After he has stolen the Medusa and is leaving the Tower!”

The cunning in his voice delighted Vulkaar. The little Death Dwarf capered and leaped about the gloom-shrouded chamber, crowing with glee. And the harsh laughter of the Veiled One rose to fill the darkness of the stone room with ringing peals of demoniac mirth…

“I don’t like this, lad. I don’t like it one bit!” old Temujin puffed, toiling along behind Kirin and the girl. The grey cindery plain was rough underfoot, and the old Magician’s sandals kept sinking into the harsh crystals. Above the sky was dark and empty, filled with drifting vapors.

Kirin didn’t like it either. It was odd. He had been told the Death Dwarves guarded the lands about the Iron Tower with great care and cunning. Where, then, were they?

Kirin and his companions had broken out of the Interplenum in a distant orbit around the parent star of Pelizon world. They crept into the system with stealth, their ship carefully shielded against detection. The planet Pelizon lay beneath their keel, a dull grey sphere of wrinkled stone, whose barren shores were washed by dark and nameless seas. The daylight terminator cut across the bleak plateaus as they drifted down towards it on tiny bursts of power from the steering jets.

No patrols. No planet-based radar stations. Nothing.

It was more than strange, it was alarming.

They landed with great secrecy on the night side. Still no alarms. Stratosphere reconnaissance showed no camp-fires, no tribal towns, no gatherings. The Iron Tower was alone and unguarded on its bleak stony plateau under the mist-robed skies. Curious…

Warily they disembarked, to gain the base of the Tower on foot. Either their stealth and secrecy had eluded the attention of the Death Dwarves, or the Tower was not kept under as strict and close a system of surveillance as they had supposed…

Caola stifled a gasp and clutched Kirin’s arm, pointing wordlessly.

At that moment, the skies cleared.

The curtain of vapor was torn aside by cold winds. The icy glitter of the stars blazed down, and the lambent glory of the moons, bathing the barren stone in ashen light.

Ahead, the Iron Tower thrust against the naked heavens.

Kirin sucked in his breath and chewed on his lip, studying the fantastic structure intently.

It was not as tall as he had expected. The Earthling was not exactly sure what he had expected: some splendid, spidery, incredibly tall structure, perhaps. But he had been wrong.

The Tower was a ziggurat, a step-pyramid, built in nine levels. Low and squat and solid, it loomed ahead of them like a man-made mountain, thrusting up out of the severe flatness of the rocky plateau.

It was a grim, prison-like structure. It looked like a fortress, all harsh angles and blocky corners. In the pallid wash of moonfire that lay upon it, the Tower did not look as if it were sheathed in iron. It had not the gloss, the gleam, of metal. Instead it was raised from some porous, lava-like stone, grey and dense and rough-surfaced.

It lifted above the plain, level upon level, ascending into the night. Somehow it looked ominous. Sinister. A weird aura of menace clung about the ziggurat. It radiated a clammy feeling of fear!

They stood, the three of them, staring up at the thing that squatted there amidst the barren plain. There was an atmosphere of alienage about the stone building—something they could not explain. But it was somehow obvious that no human hands had built that looming structure, although none of them could have put into words exactly why they felt thus.

They stared at the Tower. Kirin with a narrowed, measuring gaze, his mouth twisted into an ironic half-smile; Caola, who clung to his arm, lifted her pale face to the Tower, and her features were haunted with a shadow of foreboding and fear; and as for the doctor, he goggled at it with open mouth.

“I say again, lad, I don’t like this—it’s too quiet, I smell a trap!” he hissed.

Kirin shrugged off the emotion of dread and awe that had fallen upon him since his first sight of the Tower.

“Forget it. Come on—and keep your eyes open, both of you!”

They continued forward. From time to time, Kirin glanced in a puzzled fashion at his left wrist. There a leather band was strapped to his arm. Dials glowed phosphorescently.

The miniature detector was very simple: it was heat-sensitive along a monodirectional beam, and delicate enough to register any warm-blooded lifeform larger than a cat. From time to time he swept the surrounding plain with the beam: it registered nothing. The Tower was unguarded.

Unguarded by living things, at least.

They plodded on. The nearer they came to the Tower, the vaster it became. At first sight it had seemed of no particular consequence, a low, squat structure like a citadel or a tomb. Now, as they drew nearer, the true size and proportions of the Tower dawned on them. It was colossal. The longer they moved towards it, the larger it seemed. At last, after almost an hour, they stood before the base of it, and could see the fortress in true perspective.

It was somewhat more than half a mile long, and almost half a mile high. It was the largest single building Kirin had ever seen or heard of; even the central citadel of Azeera’s city back on Zangrimar would have been dwarfed beside it, and that was not one building, but many linked together.

Truly, only a god could have built this thing, he thought, staring up at it.

The ultimate marvel was that it was not built in blocks of stone: it was all of one piece! As for the grey, rough, porous rock whereof it was fashioned, Kirin had never seen such stone before. He ran his palm over it. It seemed as dense and tough as metal. All of his strength could not dislodge a crumb of the rough surface.

It seemed to the eye to be fire-blasted. Terrific flames had poured over it once, aeons ago. The surface was roiled and pocked, like slag, like volcanic lava.

Had the god molded it all at once out of liquid stone?

A portal yawned blackly before them.

There were no guards. No alarm posts or signal-rays. Again he swept the area with his heat-detector. Nothing. It made him feel tense and wary. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. There should have been guards…

“I’m going in,” he grunted.

The girl caught his arm. “Do you think you should?”

“Sure. I’ve committed the charts to memory. I know every foot of the passage. And I’d better get going now, before the Death Dwarves show up. We seem to have caught them on their night off!” His lips twisted in a faint grin at the sickly jest. He did not feel very humorous, standing there at the black mouth of the passage, in the very shadow of the inhuman stone thing that was half as old as the Universe itself. In fact, he felt scared, but he throttled it down, crushed it. And he knew that the longer he stood here, the worse it would get. Better get inside now while he still had some nerve left.

Temujin plucked at his cloak.

“Lad… lad! Let’s forget it… to Chaos with the Medusa, and to Chaos with the high and holy plans of Trevelon! Let’s get away from here, while we’ve still got a whole skin and a sane mind, the three of us! Let’s get off this cursed world of shadows and brooding menace.”

He shook his head.

“No, Doc—though you tempt me, no, I’m going to do it. At least, I’m going to try it. No thief in history ever succeeded in stealing the Medusa. Maybe I can break that record…”

And he turned on his heel and went into the Iron Tower. He did not look back at them. In an instant the darkness had swallowed him.

“Do you think he will do it?” Caola asked. The old Magician shrugged.

“The Gods know, lass. But if anybody can, Kirin’s the lad to do the job,” he said, heaving a heavy sigh.

“And what are we supposed to do—just wait here for him to come out again?” the girl asked, casting an anxious look about her at the grim landscape, the moonwashed mountain of stone, and the gloomy sky wherein stars burned with a far icy glitter. She shivered. “I don’t like it; I feel… as if someone is watching me!”

Old Temujin patted her hand. “Nonsense, lass! Relax; don’t worry. The lad will be all right, I promise you. And there is nothing for us to do but wait. The Gods only know how long it will take Kirin to make his way through the depths of that accursed Tower to the treasure-chamber. We must be patient and wait for his return.”

A cold, mocking voice spoke from behind them.

“We shall wait for him together,” said Zarlak. Then, to the Death Dwarves who companioned him: “Seize them!”