Tower Of The Medusa

7. CAOLA

Temujin was alarmed and somewhat distressed when Kirin did not return to the sphinx-lined hall by the end of the feast. The robot warriors escorted him back to the palatial cell he had shared with the thief and locked him in alone.

He paced the marble floor wearily, his mind busy with troublous thoughts. Although he had eaten (and drunk) hugely, he could not compose himself for sleep, for although he was weary his brain buzzed with nagging worries. He was quite aware of the fascination of the Witch Queen and had seen how Kirin reacted to her allure. As yet, the fat little thaumaturge did not know whether or not the Witch Queen of Zangrimar was also after the Medusa. He thought it very probable, but had no evidence. The mere possibility was hair-raising to contemplate. If that green-faced hussy entraps the lad in her seductive webs, he thought anxiously, there goes Trevelon’s hopes out the airlock! There, too, went all dreams of rehabilitating himself in the eyes of his Superiors…

All in all, from whichever direction you examined the possibility, it was dire and dreadful to contemplate.

He began to wish his fondness for the bottle had not come to the attentions of the frosty-hearted Elder Brethren of Trevelon. If he had been a trifle more discreet, or a wee bit more temperate, he might at this hour be snuggled among the plump cushions of his comfortable little room in the monastery, swigging happily from a fat jug of vintage plum brandy, toasting his toes before a sizzling fire, while the wintry winds of ice-bound Trevelon howled impotently beyond the thick stone walls…

Instead, he was stuck in this cursed place, disarmed of his Wand and locked away behind grim ranks of towering steel automata, on an unknown world many light-years from where he wanted to be! It was a doleful predicament. A lamentable set of circumstances. And it was not fair—!

Suddenly the door opened and the little thaumaturge spun around, hoping to see Kirin back safe and sound. Instead it was the slave girl, Caola, with a tray.

“Take it away, my lass; I couldn’t eat a thing!” he wheezed in a woebegotten tone, squinting shut his eyes against the tantalizing rotundity of the squat wine-bottle that adorned the tray. The girl said nothing, depositing the tray on a low black table. Then, straightening, she looked around.

“Where is the tall one, your companion?” she inquired. He shrugged with a loud sigh.

“I know not! That green-faced witch lured him away during the feast, and by its ending he had not returned,” he said.

The girl came over quickly to where he sat, slumped on the end of a couch.

“Listen to me,” she said in a low voice. “I know the reason for which she wishes to win the heart of your friend, the tall one…”

“Kirin.”

“Kirin. And she must not succeed!” The vehemence in her voice stung old Temujin from his apathy.

“Whose side are you on, girl?” he demanded.

“Nobody’s,” she said fiercely. “But I am against her, and her vile schemes. I could not talk before, in fear that she might be listening, for these cells are under surveillance through hidden eyes and ears, but if she is busied using her allure on the tall one, Kirin, she will have no time to eavesdrop on us! I brought the tray only as a pretence. I needed some excuse for getting in to see you…”

“I wondered about that,” he chuckled. “Since I had just come from a real feast, a tray of snacks seemed almost like too much hospitality—”

She smiled, her fair cheeks dimpling roguishly.

“Yes, of course! But the metal men who guard the door know nothing of human eating habits and have only rudimentary intelligence at best: they saw me bring a tray in earlier, and I thought they might open to me again…

“But what is this all about, lass? Why are you involved?”

She shrugged. “I am not native to this world. I am from Nar, the Planet of the Amazons. My ship was forced down just as yours was. She needs recruits, for her plans are to invade the Inner Worlds and topple the young Empire of Valdamar. I care nought for Valdamar, but I am a War Maid and we are a proud lot as you may have heard. I determined to do everything I could to frustrate her plans, in retaliation for my enslavement.”

“Good girl!” he puffed, nodding approvingly.

“That was before I had been in the palace long enough to learn the full measure of her infamy! Listen…”

And in terse, clipped fashion, Caola of Nar recounted to Temujin the full story of the Medusa, in a narrative substantially the same as the story Azeera had earlier told to Kirin. She left nothing out: the coming of the Transcosmic One into this Universe, the war of the Gods against Kom Yazoth, Valkyr’s conquest of the Demon from Beyond and his demolishment of its physical substance—all but the precious Heart, even the building of the Iron Tower and the Witch Queen’s plans to employ the magic power of the Medusa against the star worlds. Temujin was flabbergasted, for he had not until this moment ever heard the full story of the treasure the Iron Tower of Pelizon guarded. Although he had with wink and sly nod suggested to Kirin—without ever really saying it in so many words—that he was in possession of the secret, the plain fact of the matter was that his distrustful Superiors on Trevelon had not told him anything beyond the simplest facts he needed to know in order to carry out his mission.

Now he was utterly appalled at the magnitude of this mission, seeing it in its full importance, and terrified at the thought of how abysmally he had permitted the endeavor to lapse into failure…

“At first I determined I should encumber the Witch Queen for little more than stubbornness,” Caola confessed with a small smile. “Then, when I realized the full implications of her plot, I knew I must oppose her for motives more altruistic. She is an evil creature. She must never be permitted to gain power over innocent worlds. We must foil her plans somehow, old one, you and I… and Kirin.”

The doctor nodded.

“I agree, lass,” he wheezed. “But how? What’s the first step? Can you get me out of this cell? Can you find the ivory rod the metal men took from me when we were captured?”

She nodded and drew the slim wand from under the large flat tray she had carried into the room.

“I have it here,” she said. Temujin stifled a glad cry and looked it over anxiously.

“It seems to be in working order,” he puffed, “although you can never be certain with the miniaturized devices of the Ancients. Now, can you get me out of here?”

She shook her head.

“Not so fast. I think the first step would be to find out what happened to your friend, Kirin,” she said.

“How can you do that?”

“I don’t know, but I must try. As a palace slave, I can come and go with considerable freedom here within the building. The metal guards recognize me as one of the slaves and take no notice. The humans—” and here her generous scarlet mouth twisted into an ugly grimace “—those who have gone over to her side, and fawn on her, so as to enjoy titled positions of power in the empire she plans to build, they also take no notice of my comings and goings, as the doings of a slave are beneath the notice of the masters. If they see me in the corridors, they simply assume I am going about some legitimate errand or other, and hence promptly dismiss me from mind.” A mocking laugh escaped her. “That is precisely how I learned the legend of Kom Yazoth and found out the plans of the Witch Queen in the first place, by being in places where I had no business and by keeping my ears and eyes open at all times! Fear not, I shall find the Earthling, wherever he is, although it may take a little time…”

With a small smile and wave of her hand, the girl was gone and Temujin was alone again. But not as lonely as before. For now he had an ally. Remembering the strong, vibrant words the girl had spoken and the glint of stubborn determination in her eyes, Temujin relaxed a trifle. Somehow, all did not yet seem lost. Perhaps they had a chance after all…

Caola returned to the slave quarters upon leaving the room in which Doctor Temujin and the Earthling, Kirin, had been imprisoned. She mingled with the other slaves, dropping a question here and there, to see if any of her friends had noticed the Earthman or had any idea of his present whereabouts. But none of the other slaves had seen or heard of him since he had been taken from the feasting hall by Azeera several hours ago.

The girl determined she would simply have to set out and find him. And this she promptly did.

She could not disguise, even to herself, a slight personal motive in her anxiety over the tall Earthman. She had conceived an instant attraction for him the first time she saw him, hours before. And, unless she was very much mistaken—and women are hardly ever mistaken in such matters—she believed he felt attracted to her. Remembering the frank admiration in his eyes when he had looked her up and down, she flushed faintly and felt a stirring of excitement.

Caola was a War Maid of Nar. The Amazons of her planet were women warriors. They loved but once in their warlike lives, and that once was forever. And when they gave their love it was to a male stalwart, manly enough to conquer them. Caola was too young to have ever engaged in the War Games that were a gentle euphemism for mating competitions. But she was all woman and deep within her, she longed to be conquered.

The men she had met here on Zangrimar were, in the main, a shallow and sorry lot. Men usually are when they are in subjugation to a woman ruler, and the Zangrimarians were no exception to this rule. They were either cold-hearted, unscrupulous men of avarice and devouring ambition, or languid fops and limp-wristed courtiers, fawners, hangers-on. She loathed them all.

But Kirin was something different. Tall and strong and courageous. His ironic, mocking air, she somehow knew, was an affectation. She longed to know him better, to test his manhood, to fight by his side.

So as she wandered unobtrusively through the wandering ways of the giant citadel, ever on the alert for some token of his presence, she felt her pulses quicken in a very feminine manner at the very thought of his nearness…

She very soon exhausted all the more likely places in which Kirin might have been found. The first place was the luxurious suite of apartments reserved for the Witch Queen. Caola dreaded finding him there, in that silken boudoir, perhaps even in the Queen’s arms. But the female slaves who resided in the anterooms to these private chambers told her the Queen was not within, and had not returned to her suite since the feast.

A quick tour of the interrogation chambers, the torture rooms, and the high-security cells also produced nothing. And Caola left those grim portions of the palace with a vast sense of relief.

A hunch took her to the apartments of Pangoy, the Queen’s confidant and chief advisor. To penetrate here she took extreme cautions not to be seen, for of all the inhabitants of the palace, she feared most the Witch Queen whose sadistic cruelties she had tasted ere now, and secondly the icy-hearted Pangoy, whose cold probing gaze terrified her.

In order to peruse his apartments she employed her intimate knowledge of the ancient structure. She had months ago found a secret passage which meandered between the thick walls of the old fortress. It prowled past many private apartments and contained a secret spy-eye wherethrough the rooms could be examined safely from a place of concealment.

She crept through the dark passage to Pangoy’s quarters and utilized the spy-eye. His bedroom was empty; so was his laboratory and sitting room.

But the inner chamber was occupied.

Caola caught her breath sharply. A man’s body lay on a metal table, covered by a white cloth. She could not see his face…

This room, she knew, was reserved for Pangoy’s strange experiments into the human brain. The Mind Wizard was possessed of certain odd powers, augmented by the telepathic amplifier helmet invented by the terrible savants of his dreaded home-world, Nex.

Here he worked his strange arts upon helpless captives. Here he sought to gain mastery over the minds of others, to bend and crush the wills of former enemies, to force men to become the willing slaves of himself and his mistress, the Witch Queen.

From her position, Caola could not see who lay on the metal table. A great white light blazed down on that table. Straps of pliable metal bound the seemingly unconscious, or dead, figure to the table.

She resolved that she must ascertain the identity of Pangoy’s latest victim. Her fingers fumbled along the inner wall of the secret passage, and tripped a catch. A concealed door swung open soundlessly. The girl stepped out into the room.

She went swiftly and silently over to the operating table and reached out for the edge of the cloth that covered the body. But before she could touch it a cold voice rang out harshly behind her—

“What are you doing in this room, girl?”

She turned and looked straight into the chill menace of Pangoy’s gaze.