Tower Of The Medusa

5. THE HALL OF SPHINXES

The cell into which the metal warriors thrust Kirin and Doctor Temujin was luxurious rather than merely comfortable. Walls of priceless winewood panelling from the Garden Worlds met their eyes. The floor was tiled with alternate squares of green and yellow marble, and glowing tapestry-carpets were scattered about it. Silken divans met their gaze, and low tabourets of rare woods bore bowls of bright flowers. From a brazen tripod a wavering spiral of pale green scented smoke perfumed the air. Kirin sniffed appreciatively. It was an exquisite blend of burnt cinnamon and white spikenard from Dolmentus.

“Now this is what I call a jail!” he grinned. Temujin looked about glumly.

“It may be comfortable, lad,” he wheezed dispiritedly, “but it is still a prison. Alas!” He sank wearily on one of the soft divans and clasped his fat red face in his hands. “I did not mention it before, but I am not particularly in favor with the Elder Brothers of my order back on Trevelon,” he groaned. “To expiate my sins I was given this important mission; if I performed it well, all would be forgiven. Alas, things could not have gone worse… and now the mission is ended and all is lost. Woe is me … woe … !”

Kirin laughed and clapped the little man on one bowed shoulder.

“Cheer up, Doc. Things are not as bad as that, and they may get better soon. After all, whoever rules this place could have chained us into a dark cold dungeon. Obviously, from this kind of treatment, he or they want us in good health, or they wouldn’t be treating us so well. Never give up, old fellow!”

A gleam shone in the magician’s eye.

“Why do you say things may get better soon?” he inquired. “Do you have a plan?”

“Maybe,” Kirin grinned.

“You think you can get us out of here, lad? But how? They took your gun—they even took my Rod of Power! We are unarmed and among enemies…”

He broke off as Kirin suddenly gestured for silence. The door was opening. Kirin tensed, expecting one of the towering metal colossi, instead it was a young girl who entered the room bearing a tray of food. He looked her over with appreciation. She was well worth looking at. Slim and blond, with hair like spun gold and wide bold eyes of emerald green. She had a lush figure and long sinuous legs and a ripe mouth made for kissing. Her abbreviated garment, breastplates of silver, silver slippers, and a silken loin-cloth, did little to hide her loveliness. She looked about eighteen.

“So they aren’t all made of metal in this place, eh?” Kirin grinned. She flashed him a bold look from tip-tilted green eyes as she set the tray down on a low table of candle-wood. Dishes of savory meat and hot pastries and a bowl of mixed fruits lay thereon, and a flagon of wine.

“We saw a few people in the streets as we entered the city,” Kirin said, “but they all looked pale and beaten. You look very different, girl. What’s your name?”

“Caola,” she said softly. “Caola of Nar. I am a palace slave, and hence better treated than the city folk,” she said. “But I am not supposed to talk to you, and she may be listening!”

“Who is ‘she’—the ruler of this city?” Kirin asked.

But the girl was gone swiftly, indicating that she dare not talk with them any longer.

“If that’s the sort of maids they have in this hotel,” Kirin mused appreciatively as he sat down to lunch, “I won’t mind staying here a while.”

Temujin only groaned and put his head in his hands.

“Have some wine and cheer up, Doc,” the thief advised. The old magician shook his head dolefully.

“Don’t remind me of the stuff!” he sighed. “It was because of my fondness for the fluid that my Order disciplined me in the first place… well, perhaps just a drop,” he wheezed. Kirin poured him a full goblet.

“Just for medicinal purposes, mind you,” the old magician said lamely, in answer to Kirin’s mocking grin.

It was many hours later when the metal men came for them. Kirin cautioned his companion against any rash words or hasty actions.

“Just look and listen,” he said tersely. “Leave the talking to me. But keep your eyes open. Everything we can learn about this setup could be valuable, you never know when an odd bit of information may come in handy later on.”

The old thaumaturge growled dubiously and whuffed through his bandit mustachios, but ambled along behind Kirin as the robot guards escorted them out of the room. They passed through corridors and chambers of surpassing beauty. Thousands of different kinds of stone were fitted together into a mosaic of contrasts. Lime-green Vegan marble and yellow Argionid granite and milky, lucent silkstone from the Ghost Moon. Sleek blue stone of Irian quarries and that blood-red alabaster the Tigermen mine from the desert hills of Bartosca, snarling under the lash of the Winged People who are their lords. The effect was exquisite and subtle.

At length they entered into a tremendous hall whose groined and vaulted ceiling was lost in murky shadows far over their heads. Mighty sphinxes of dark smooth stone were ranked the length of this hall, and green glowing jewelled eyes flashed in the dark enigma of their faces. A feast was in progress in the sphinx-lined hall; it hummed with soft conversation, which stilled upon their entrance. Kirin’s gaze flew past the silk-clad lords and their veiled ladies, to study the slim, languorous woman who sat enthroned above the throng. She was ravishing, the flawless beauty of her jade green arms and bare shoulders set off by a high-necked gown of glittering silver cloth. A jewelled tiara crusted with pale red diamonds blazed in her silken tresses, the hue of midnight. Fiery dark eyes like black stars caught and held his own.

Beside him, Kirin sensed the fat thaumaturge start suddenly.

“Gods of Space,” Temujin breathed, “I have heard of that woman! There cannot be two of them in this galaxy. She is Azeera, the Witch Queen!”

“So we are on Zangrimar, the lone planet of the star Solphis,” Kirin mused. But every eye was upon them and they had no time for further talk. The Witch Queen beckoned imperiously and guards led them to places set on the dais near her throne chair.

“Come, my honored guests, and join our festivities,” she called, and her voice was low, throaty, alluring. Kirin tried to make a jest out of the contrast between her words and the fact that they had been forced down and held under guard, but his usual wit deserted him and his tongue stumbled over the words. Azeera watched him with a mingling of amusement and cool appraisal. There was also a certain admiration in her eyes. Temujin felt inward qualms and sought to warn his young comrade to be on guard against the wiles of the woman, but Kirin acted rather like one in a daze and seemed not to hear.

Temujin gave up trying and fell to the sumptuous meal. From all that he had heard of the green lady of Zangrimar, Kirin would not be the first man who had fallen under the dazzling spell of her seductive loveliness.

The feast, he was reluctantly forced to admit, was superb. A succession of young female slaves, dressed much in the same manner of abbreviated garment as the girl Caola had worn, presented an assortment of delicious dishes from which the guests lazily selected their portions. Great platters of chased gold, electrum, silver and sparkling chaya bore succulent roast moon-ox, broiled shynx with Vegan cloves, rare Pharvisian snow-tiger steak, steaming dumplings in herb gravy, and all manner of fantastical pastries and delicacies crusted with sugar and preserved fruits and jellies.

Temujin fell to with a hearty appetite and downed an enormous meal, washed down with a succession of beverages. There were the green wines of Shazar and Bellerophon, and rich red-golden ales from Netharna and Chorver, and fiery purple Valthome liquor, and chilled goblets of sparkling neol, and yet others to sample. The queer wines and liqueurs of half a hundred worlds were here for the asking.

Chewing a savory slice of Chadorian venison in rich spice-cream sauce, Temujin resigned himself to captivity, with the thought that if all prisons served so regal a fare as this, few men would seek freedom!

Azeera engaged Kirin in conversation. Generally, the thief had a suave and witty way with women. But this radiant and mysterious creature filled him with awe. He could hardly take his eyes off her, or stop listening to the honeyed and seductive music of her warm, purring voice. She exuded a heavy intoxicating aura of sexual allure that was almost overpowering. His eyes clung to her slim bare arms, to the rich curve of hip and thigh, to the sleek, ripe globes of her swelling breasts. He hardly tasted the food or the exquisite wines that were set before him.

Despite her allure, the Earthman strove to keep his wits about him. It seemed obvious that the Witch Queen used the power of her body, the spell of her voice, and the dark sorcery of her eyes to conquer men, and he battled against these seductive magics with all the manhood within him. He found himself wondering at the lovely girls who served the feast—only a woman confident of her own superb beauty would dare surround herself with such charming young slaves. He dwelled upon the insolence implied in this kind of over-weening self-confidence. It suggested a clue to the nature of Azeera; perhaps even a flaw in her defenses. If he could resist her blandishments, disdain them…

“Let me ask, my lady, for a simple answer to a simple question,” he proposed bluntly. Anything to end this verbal parrying and to get to the point. “My companion and I are curious as to your reasons for forcing our ship down on your world.”

Her almond eyes glinted with jewelled fires.

“Very well, then,” she said softly. “A simple answer it shall be. I, too, want to hire you to steal the Medusa.”

He started, but controlled his reaction, hoping that his astonishment was not visible on his face. Before he could think of something to say, she continued.

“Let us abandon all this subterfuge,” Azeera said. “I need you for the same reason Trevelon needs you. Only to a thief of your calibre do I dare entrust so vital a mission. A lesser man might falter and fail, attempting to penetrate the magical defenses that guard the Iron Tower from intruders. Failure can be fatal to my plans, for it will alert the Death Dwarves and the watchers of Trevelon. There can only be one attempt on the Medusa, and I dare not risk failure.”

“What is it about this jewel that makes it so important to so many people?” he mused. She pounced upon the question as a cat might pounce upon a small rodent who had thoughtlessly exposed itself.

“Ah, so the wise men of Trevelon did not tell you that secret, eh?” she laughed, eyes bright with witch-fires of mockery. “I wonder that you trust the grey philosophers, since they obviously do not trust you. Well, I will hold no secrets from you, Kirin of Tellus. The Medusa is the most important thing in the Universe. It is the key to power. With it, one may stretch out his hand and pluck the star worlds like gems to form an Imperial coronet.”

She rose, and the room fell silent. Slim and unbearably lovely in the shimmering gown of metallic silver, she stood like a statuette cast by a master hand from precious metals.

“Come with me, Kirin of Tellus, and I will put into your hands the Secret of the Universe. Come with me … if you dare!”

Her voice rang through the silent vastness of the hall of sphinxes like a war horn, summoning legions to victory. The sirenic witchery of her voice reached out and stirred to life something deep within him, a central core of emotion, a hungering after heroic deeds, a lust for fame and glory, whose existence he had never suspected. He thrilled to the ringing music of her voice and the dark fire within her slanting eyes, and rose numbly to his feet although the fat little thaumaturge plucked feebly at his arm and sought to stay him. He brushed the hand aside impatiently, shrugged off the half-heard protests of the little man. Glory summoned him to high, heroic deeds of valor! And he must respond.

“Lead on, lady,” he said huskily. “And I will come with you…”

Together they left the hall.

Across the dais, seated at a long low table, the shadowy form of the bald Mind Wizard, Pangoy, of Nex, watched them go, with sardonic eyes and a slight mirthless smile that did not hide the bitter agony in his heart. The woman had found a new toy to play with, to mold to her purpose, to fondle for a time, before she cast it broken in the dust…

His eyes narrowed. Not for nothing had the Witch Queen studied the twin arts of semantics and sonics. Her voice became a tool and a weapon of extraordinary subtlety and power. Already the Earthling was enslaved…