When the Green Star Calls

Chapter 6 THE SCARLET PYLON

To the eyes of the boy Karn, all of his surroundings were mysteries and he regarded his new mode of life, with its many remarkable conveniences, with superstitious awe. This seemed only natural, for the savage boy had lived alone in the wild under the most primitive circumstances and had never known anything remotely like city life before.

I, however, as an Earthman from Twentieth Century America, could realize the remarkable and sophisticated scientific accomplishments which had been attained by the mysterious folk who had built this city. And I was busily putting two and two together.

The man who had saved Karn the Hunter from the fangs of the deadly phuol was a seeker after wisdom, a quester of lost secrets. He seemed a youngish man, as far as I could tell, for his features were unwrinkled and his brow smooth—but, as I have elsewhere remarked, it is oddly difficult to ascertain with any particular degree of certainty the age of any of the inhabitants of this World of the Green Star. This is due, I think, largely to the curious fact that the Laonese seldom think of time as we Americans think of it, and hardly mark its passage. We Americans, you know, are extraordinarily conscious of the passing of time; we cut it up into hours and minutes and seconds, and wear small but very complicated machines on our wrists so that we may be almost constantly aware of the flow of these time-divisions, which are purely imaginary and invented by ourselves.

We also have the odd custom of marking time into larger and yet larger divisions—days and nights, weeks and months, years and decades and generations and centuries and ages and have devised all manner of methods by which to observe the passage of the “moment called now” through these ever-widening divisions. Calendars, almanacs, and history books are only a few of our inventions designed for this purpose. But the Laonese know little of this curious custom of hours; they hardly even think in terms of decades, much less of years, and hence it is remarkably difficult to ascertain the ages of any of them. For they themselves cannot easily tell how old they are—it is a question they never ask, and something they seem never to think about, or very rarely.

Thus, although I possessed the full memories of Karn the Hunter, I cannot really say with any exactitude just how old he was when first I entered his untenanted flesh. From the looks of his body, I could have guessed him to be an adolescent. A boy of sixteen, perhaps, or seventeen—long-legged and a bit scrawny, ribs showing through his bare bronzed hide, with awkward hands and feet. Seventeen was the mental estimate I formed of his—of my age.

But as for Sarchimus the Wise, he might have been a man of anywhere from the middle thirties to a well-preserved and youthfully agile fifty; further than that I could not even guess. He seemed to be about in his early forties—but I am only guessing.

How long he had lived here in the Scarlet Pylon I never knew. He was a sober, thoughtful man—an intellectual, virtually a sage or a philosopher—and something of a combination of magician and scientist. There were, as I soon came to suspect, other savants of his mysterious calling who shared the deserted and ruined metropolis with us, but these he thought of as rivals and enemies, and they dwelt apart from each other in scrupulously maintained privacy in what amounted to nothing less than a state of continuously alert armed truce.

But more on this subject later.

He was a somber, solemn, incommunicative man, this Sarchimus my master, and I saw little of him once my convalescence was done and I had regained my health to such a degree as to be able to get around by myself and to tend to my own needs. Aloof and inscrutable, dwelling far apart from my own quarters in apartments of his own, we had little or nothing to do with each other, at least in the beginning. And while the boy Karn could not help feeling a tingle of superstitious awe and primal fear in the presence of the mysterious “magician”—as he thought of Sarchimus—I, a civilized American, thought of him as a sort of scientist or scholar and was eager to converse with him on an equal level as an adult. For I understood at least the rudiments of the science I saw about me, and would have questioned him from a level of scientific knowledge that would probably have startled him and aroused his suspicions—for such advanced knowledge would have surprised him, coming from an untutored wild boy of the forest.

For this reason, then, it is perhaps well that I saw so little of him and that our paths crossed but seldom.

The Dead City of Sotaspra in which the science magician had made his home had been emptied or abandoned ages before, as could have been guessed by the extent of its decay. But obviously, in its prime, it had been the cradle of a superior civilization. In fact—as I soon had reason to suspect—the Sotaspran civilization had been a remarkably advanced culture, which had progressed far beyond the present state of the other cities of this planet which I had visited or heard of during my previous venture here. The skysled which flew by riding magnetic currents was an example of the heights to which Sotaspran science had attained before its mysterious eclipse, as was the crystal blasting-spear with which Sarchimus had slain the scorpion monster. This particular weapon was called the zoukar, by the way.

Sarchimus was not, of course, a Sotaspran by birth, for the city was uninhabited, save by a few seekers after the lost secrets of its ancient people. He had been born and educated in a distant city whose name I never learned, and his thirst for knowledge had drawn him here as it had drawn his fellow-savants. Entering the Dead City of Sotaspra many years before, Sarchimus had sought out the isolated Scarlet Pylon and had made it his home and a closely-guarded fortress. One by one he had excavated from the ruins the various instruments and vehicles of the lost civilization, had subjected them to intensive study, and had in many cases mastered the secret of their use and revitalized them. But many more instruments remained cryptic and unsolved mysteries to him, and many more secrets were still undiscovered.

That I lived at all in this healthy young body was due entirely to the fact that the healing lamp had been one of the first secrets of the lost science of Sotaspra which he had recovered and mastered. I could not help feeling a certain debt of gratitude to him for thus saving me from an agonizing death, although his reasons for so doing remained unexplained. The impersonal manner in which he regarded me, and the way he remained aloof and apart from me, shunning any closer communion, gave me cause to suspect that his reasons for rescuing Karn the Hunter from death were other than merely altruistic.

At any rate, I had the freedom of the tower, save for certain sections thereof, among which were the private apartments of Sarchimus and his laboratorium, wherein he deposited all his secrets. During the day I was free to come and go as I wished, with few duties which demanded my attention. We ate at different hours, and, although it had been suggested to me that it would be wiser and safer to remain within the Scarlet Pylon itself during the hours of darkness, there were few restrictions placed upon my movements, and little in fact that was actually forbidden me.

As soon as I was able to get around by myself, I began eagerly exploring as much of the Scarlet Pylon as was permitted. I cannot say exactly what I was looking for, but what I desired was some means of ascertaining the position of the Dead City in relation to those few portions of the globe known to me from my former incarnation on this planet as Kyr Chong. I suppose I was unconsciously looking for the Laonese equivalent of a map or atlas or geography book; but whether or not the Sotasprans had actually possessed anything of this nature I could not be certain. There was, you see, no way I could find my path back to where I had left the Princess Niamh unless I could discover where the Dead City was located in relation to the Secret City of the Outlaws. At the very least, I hoped to find the location of Niamh’s city, Phaolon. When last word had come to me of Phaolon, the Jewel City had been in imminent danger of siege by the legions of Ardha, a hostile city. Even if I was unable to find my princess, I could still be of service to her if I could assist in the defense of her kingdom.

Alas, the Sotaspran civilization seemed not to possess maps or atlases. Or, if indeed there were such, they were either not to be found in the Pylon of Sarchimus, or were somehow concealed from random discovery.

Over a period of many days I searched as much of the Pylon of Sarchimus as was not explicitly forbidden to me. Sloping ramps connected the twenty tiers of the crystalline spire, and a veritable labyrinth of apartments, antechambers, and cubicles were to be found on the several floors. Although the tower had either survived the decay of the Dead City in a remarkable state of preservation, or had been thoroughly and laboriously refurbished, few of the various suites were at all furnished and most gaped empty as if abandoned.

The librarium of Sarchimus occupied most of one entire floor. Here, curving walls were lined with shelves which were cumbered by a profusion of folios and librams and volumes of many sizes and description. Never before in my wanderings upon the World of the Green Star had I seen such a collection of books, and had my search been motivated by mere idle curiosity, I could have spent many days happily engaged in exploring this universe of alien literature. As it was, I was eager to be gone from here, anxious to discover some notion of the whereabouts of this city, and fearful to display too obvious an interest in the librarium, which, had he at all noticed it, would perhaps have aroused the suspicions of my master. A savage boy from the wilderness, after all, should not know how to read.

The kind of books made by the Laonese tend toward immense folios. They are very heavy, measuring two or three feet across, and in order to peruse them in comfort you require the services of a lectern. Merely moving them one at a time is a task of considerable labor, and thus, for these reasons, my search of the library of the Ancients was cursory, furtive, and hasty. Moreover, I was ill-equipped for the study of Laonese literature; my education into the language had largely been on the vocal level. Although I had received some tutoring into the written script at the hands of Khin-nom, the old philosopher of Phaolon had been supremely concerned to acquaint me with the spoken language, not the written.

Even from my cursory search, I gained some notion as to the contents of the vast librarium, and learned nothing of what I sought. Most of the volumes were tomes of a metaphysical nature, pondering the verities of the universe, and composed in a language so highly technical or symbolic as to be virtually incomprehensible. I found few books devoted in any degree to the physical sciences—and wondered thereat. For how had Sarchimus managed to find the key to the lost science magic of the Ancients, without a text?

Some of the tiers of the tower were devoted to understandable uses, such as sleeping apartments and the vast librarium. There were also galleries and arcades given over to collections of artifacts. The immense sophistication of the Ancients was visible in their art as it was in their remarkable technology; for here were mosaics and frescoes which would not have looked out of place in Terrene museums devoted to the avant-garde—geometrical abstractions, pure studies in tonal values, nonobjective works in which meaningless organic shapes of color contrasted subtly with each other.

But other art works, perhaps dating from an earlier and less intellectual era, were representational in nature, although seemingly allegorical in theme. These invariably depicted a race of winged beings whom I at first assumed to depict angels or genii.

While some apartments of the Scarlet Pylon were devoted to obvious uses, others were enigmatic and mysterious. For what conceivable use, for example, had the Ancients constructed that central shaft that ran from the bottom of the tower to its utmost crest? A mere hollow tube it was, with sliding panels that opened onto each and every floor of the tower. I wondered if it could be something in the nature of an elevator shaft; as it lacked either car or cables, I soon abandoned this thesis, and simply set it down as yet another in a world of many mysteries.

Some of the suites Sarchimus had reserved for his own uses. There was an immense laboratorium filled with crystal vats and sparkling tubework, wherein he spent a considerable portion of each day. Another lengthy hall was filled with gleaming machines of unfamiliar design and unknown purpose. And there was also a circular rotunda wherein abstract shapes of solid crystal stood on plinths of copper, jade, and iron. Lights moved and shimmered through these masses of shaped crystal, each differing from the other. One towering ovoid contained an inner structure of minute and starlike points of light which flickered from light to dark in a complex rhythm all their own—for all the world like a string of Christmas tree lights draped about an invisible armature!

Another bulbed crystal glowed with a sourceless aura of dire radiance that pulsed slowly in throbbing rhythm, like the beating of a gigantic heart somehow rendered visible rather than audible. And there was also a soaring, curved shaft which seemed to contain captive lightnings, for long crackling sparks of blue-white fire, intolerably brilliant, searing to the eye, sped randomly from top to bottom of the monolith.

The purpose of this rotunda of irradiated crystals was just one more mystery.

But there were greater mysteries to come!

At length I came into an enormous hall of many levels; that is, curved balconies, three in number, encircled a vast open space three full stories in depth.

This was one of the unrefurbished portions of the Scarlet Pylon, and it was one of the strangest areas I had yet explored. All furniture, draperies, and hangings had been stripped from the circular tiers and the vast floor below—or had perhaps crumbled into dust through the passage of time, for the glimmering pave was strewn most oddly with heaps and mounds and swaths of powdery dust, amid which were small odds and ends of dry and porous wood and morsels of some ceramic substance that resembled potsherds.

Within this vast place were over one hundred statues.

I have remarked on the art works left behind by the extinct Sotasprans earlier in this narrative, and I have mentioned their principal sculptural motif is that of allegorical or mythological figures that are winged, like angels or demons. Well, all of the immense number of statues wherewith this enormous room was thronged were in the likeness of these remarkable winged genii, or whatever they were. They stood about seven feet tall and were depicted in a variety of amazing tasks—amazing not because of the unusual nature of the tasks, but of the extremely commonplace nature of them!

That is, some were pictured as sitting—although there was no furniture for them to sit upon—while others leaned against walls or columns. A dozen or so had been carved as if they were leaning on their forearms against the balustrades of the upper balconies, staring down into the vast hall beneath. More than a few had been sculpted in a recumbent posture, as if they were supposed to be sprawled about or stretched out on divans or couches. These lay flat on the floor amid mounds of dust and decaying wood.

It was all most remarkable. I have never before seen a sculpture gallery composed of figures designed in such lifelike detail, depicted in some ordinary and mundane occupations. They were, also, carved from a most peculiar substance, like white chalk, which seemed to my untutored eye an unlikely substance for sculpture, as the lightest blow could break away an elbow or a finger; in fact, many of the figures, particularly those depicted as stretched out on nonexistent couches, were broken.

It was merely another mystery.

But one I was later to remember…

Chapter 7 THE CITY OF MONSTERS

If I have given the impression that I had no commerce with my master during this period, let me correct it here. Although for the most part Sarchimus left me to my own devices, busying himself with abstruse researches and experimentations which required privacy, I was occasionally summoned to attend him and from time to time performed small services for him, such as the running of errands.

The first of these meetings came at the terminus of my period of convalescence, when the science magician demonstrated to me how to use the automatic food machines and the sanitary conveniences. During that interview he also gave me to understand the limits that he imposed upon my movements. I could go where I wished, save for those rooms whose portals were sealed with the mark of the Hand, these being and these I was to consider as his private domain; any intrusion would be at peril of his ill will. This insignia, by the way, denoted Sarchimus himself and was in the nature of an heraldic blazon—the mark of a human palm, with fingers widespread, in crimson. This was the seal of Sarchimus.

During this first interview I was given to understand that to attempt to leave the Pylon by any egress was to imperil my life; the bottommost seven tiers of the Scarlet Pylon were somehow hostile to humankind, or so it was explained to me. I was not long in discovering the truth of this in my own way.

My search for some manner of map or atlas of the World of the Green Star had soon exhausted all of the chambers of the tower, save for those sealed with the Scarlet Hand and the lower seven tiers of the structure itself.

One day I decided to descend by the series of sloping ramps and explore the base of the Scarlet Pylon. I think I disregarded the warnings of Sarchimus as an attempt to hold me prisoner through superstitious fear. I think I can also explain my rashness in venture to ignore his warnings as the actions of a restless and reckless boy—for at this point I had not yet managed to establish an inner balance between my youthful body and juvenile emotions and the sober maturity of my intellect and spirit.

I found the seventh tier a dark and gloomy place, the floors littered with rubbish, the walls covered with green mold. The air here was not only dead and vitiated but also steamy and rank with vile odors, like the foul miasma that rises from the scummed waters of a swamp.

On the sixth floor I found—horror!

It was darker here than on the floor above, and the floor underfoot was carpeted with slimy mosses. Huge fungoid structures rose about me as I crept cautiously down the ramp—bloated and unhealthy fungi of enormous size, glazed with putrescent moisture, splotched with huge discolorations.

As I stepped to the bottom of the ramp my ankle was caught suddenly in a tenacious grip. I voiced a cry of astonishment and struggled to free myself. But the most violent contortions failed to loosen my foot from the green and furry tentacle that had ensnared me.

I had earlier found a scalpel-like implement of transparent metal in one of the cupboards of the suites above, which I had secreted about my person under the abbreviated tunic the science magician had given me to wear—an effeminate, silky thing, colored a repulsive lavender, which left my brown legs bare to the upper thigh. Now I snatched the glassy blade from its hiding place and slashed at the ropy tendril which wound ever tighter about my foot. The blade sawed through the ropy substance as through a vine, and to my surprise and consternation the thing that gripped my foot bled greenly—like sap from a living branch!

In a moment I had freed myself from the clinging tendril. As I kicked loose from its clutches, I got a good look at it for the first time. It was hard to make out in the dim green gloom, but the thing which wriggled and writhed across the mossy carpet for all the world like some manner of serpent was—I now realized with horror—a species of vegetable life, no reptile at all!

It was, in fact, a vine—complete with a hairy cilia of rootlets, twigs, and even flowers!

As it threshed madly about, shedding green, sap-like gore, I perceived other such vegetable horrors slithering toward it from the further aisles of the fungi grove. In an instant they had coiled about their injured fellow, insinuating their bristling rootlets into its open wound, and clung to it, feeding like vegetable vampires.

Thus I escaped without harm from my first experience with the dread crawler-vines.

Circling the place where the vine monsters lay entangled, feeding gluttonously on the vegetable gore of their fallen fellow, I continued my cautious descent of the Scarlet Pylon.

I knew now that the warnings given to me by Sarchimus were neither idle nor fallacious. But such was my determination, that I refused to turn back. With a wary eye out for more of the slithering vines, I prowled the aisles of bloated and enormous fungi, located a descending ramp thickly and loathsomely carpeted with grisly mold, and cautiously followed it down to the fifth tier.

Here there existed a mere ghost of light—a dim aura of corruption that flickered about the nodding heads of the swollen fungi.

Here, too, I found horror beyond belief.

A vast bulk shouldered through the stalked fungi and blundered toward me. It was an oddly unformed creature, shaped rather like an immense worm, but it progressed in a sort of lumbering charge on several pairs of short, stumpy feet which ended in thick pads. The thing had a heavy, fatty skin or hide which was of a pallid and repulsive hue, sickly yellow banded with white, and was splotched with green-gray mold. Its head was a bulging and featureless mass of fleshy leaves or petals, like cabbage leaves, but thicker and more meaty. It had no visual or auditory organs that I could clearly see, but I saw with a thrill of indescribable horror sprouting from amid the thick, wet petals of its visage two flowers growing, red and baleful, flowers whose extended and vibrating stamen and pistils seemed to taste the air—swiveling clumsily toward me, as if the flowers were eyes!

I shrieked and turned to flee, but the lumbering worm-thing was upon me in the same instant. The thick wet petals of its face slapped and clutched at me like deformed hands, and I saw that the underside of each petallike flap was tined with prickly thorns. These tore at my flesh, drawing blood, and sunk in, clinging to my bare shoulder and upper arm.

The huge, blundering thing stank of mold and corruption and rotting flowers. It slobbered and fumbled loathsomely at my flesh and, yelling like a demented thing, I struck again and again, driving my glassy scalpel deep into its broad breast. The fatty tissue off its flesh was pulpy and soft, and I carved it into ribbons without finding a vital organ.

Suddenly, I thought of those flowerlike eyes and slashed at them, severing one at the stalk, whereupon the monster squealed and shuddered, its thorny facial petals releasing me so that I fell to my knees in the slimy mosses. One organ of sense left unimpaired, however, the vast worm-thing squirmed toward me again in a multilegged rush and would have trampled me underfoot had not a miraculous intervention saved me from my own folly.

For suddenly the green gloom was split apart by a knife of stabbing electric fire!

The fattish breast of the worm-thing exploded, slabs and gobbets of wet tissue splattering about. The stench of ozone was sharp in my nostrils, together with a curious succulent odor my Terrene memory somehow identified as frying mushrooms.

The thing squealed and squirmed and fell on one side; writhing and coiling sluggishly, stumpy feet pawing clumsily at the air, its breast gouged in a smoking, blackened pit.

I looked up, dazedly, into the solemn, expressionless features of Sarchimus the Wise who stood there, his crystal blasting-wand clutched in one hand.

And then I think I fainted.

The magician had entered the lower levels by means of a wall panel which disclosed a lift. He bore me back into the upper tiers and to safety again. I feared his wrath, having disobeyed his instructions, but I suspect that Sarchimus was a being of pure intellect into whose peculiar mode of existence the emotions had little or no role to play.

“Now, boy, you perceive the wisdom of my counsels, which were not given on mere whim or through intent to deceive, but for your own good,” he said gravely.

I nodded humbly, begging his pardon for my violation of his precepts, which was occasioned or so I told him, through unendurable curiosity and no desire to go against his wishes.

“Very well; this time I will overlook the transgression. But in the future be more careful, and obey my strictures to the letter, for they are derived from sources of information you can know naught of. The lower tiers of this structure are the haunt of terrible monstrosities, as are the streets of the city itself, and the other buildings. You have narrowly escaped from the death-fungus; had you just brushed against it, it would have released a cloud of deadly spores which would cling to the membranes of your throat and lungs, feeding thereupon, and growing until in instants you would have been suffocated. That was on the seventh level. The crawler-vines, a species of vegetable vampire, you have already encountered—but the saloogs are the deadliest of all, and you could never have survived the attack, armed only with a knife for they lack any vital organs whatsoever and are unkillable, save by such weapons as my death-flash,” he warned. He indicated the crystal rod capped at both ends with glinting metal, which he bore in his right hand; the hand went gloved in metallic fabric which, I assume, insulated it from contact with the captive lightnings of the zoukar.

I questioned him in a faint voice as to the nature of the unkillable brute which had attacked me in the lower levels of the tower, the thing he called a saloog, and learned that such beasts are weird half-animal, half-fungoid predators. They roam the deserted and ruin-choked avenues of the Dead City, and like the crawler-vines and the death-fungus and yet other even more horrible brutes, are the hybrid spawn of the city itself, the results of evolution gone mad.

The energy-impregnated crystals whereof the buildings of Sotaspra were constructed more than a million years ago (he told me) fed the mechanisms of the city with an inexhaustible flow of power. But the builders of the city had, in the course of ages, lost all control over the energy crystals, which went wild, their radiations breeding monstrous hybrid creatures which in time destroyed the city and slew the Ancients themselves. Although the crystals are long ages dead, the hybrid predators breed still, for which reason the city is deemed accursed by all civilized races of the World of the Green Star, and only a few daring savants such as my master himself care to venture into the City of Monsters to wrest the secrets of a lost wisdom from the haunt of ravening horror.

Seeing that I had taken no hurt from my experiences, Sarchimus soon left me to my own thoughts. Now I had been doubly warned, but from the experience had come away with valuable information.

I now knew that it would be impossible, or at least very dangerous, for me to attempt to leave the Scarlet Pylon on foot.

And I had learned that my master had some subtle means of keeping unseen watch on all that took place within the precincts of his tower; for it was some system of hidden mirrors or camera eyes which had apprised him of my danger.

I resolved to continue my search, but with greater care than before.

And the very next day I made a gigantic discovery.

Chapter 8 THE WINGED MEN

By this time I had explored all of the apartments within the Scarlet Pylon, save for the very lowermost tiers and the rooms sealed from my access by the sign of the Scarlet Hand.

And I had begun to piece parts of the puzzle together.

There were many small, mysterious things about the design and decoration and furnishings of the Pylon which intrigued me. A peculiar motif ran through many of the mosaics and frescoes and other artifacts, that of strange winged figures of pallid gold. At first I had dismissed this element in the decorations as being merely allegorical; now I was not so sure. For the Winged Men appeared again and again in the sculpture, the design of furniture, and the wall paintings that ran around the upper portions of so many of the suites. And there was that hollow central shaft whose nature and purpose remained an insoluble enigma.

The science magician had told me, casually and in passing, that the peoples who had built the City of Sotaspra had flourished a million years ago. One million years… an enormous span of time, surely; on the planet of my birth, the ancestors of my race first emerged from brutehood a million years ago. Yet here on the World of the Green Star there had dwelt a people capable of tapping the energy-lattice frozen in solid crystal, able to navigate the atmosphere of their planet in magnetic sleds, and to imprison lightning in wands of artificial manufacture.

Could the Ancients whose secret lore Sarchimus studied have been-pre-humans?

Before I could learn further details of this mystery, I must gain entry into those chambers sealed off with the mark of the Scarlet Hand.

And I would only dare that if the science magician him self were to be absent from the Scarlet Pylon for a time. As things worked out, my opportunity came on the day following my adventure in the lower tiers. Purely by chance I happened to be strolling on one of the ornamental belvederes which overlooked the desolate city. A shadow fell over me from above. Looking up, I saw the skysled gliding off through the dim gold-green daylight. The cowled figure of Sarchimus could be seen mounted on the aerial vehicle. Where he was going, or for what purpose, or how long he would be absent—these things I could not know.

But my chance had come.

And I took it!

The laboratorium was of little interest to me. Nor were the sleeping chambers of my master. Yet another red-marked door opened upon a workroom where sheaves of parchment manuscript, scrawled with enigmatic calculations, littered a metal desk. But a further suite opened upon the secret itself l

It was a large, shadowy room with a domed ceiling, the curve of wall and crystal window masked behind heavy drapes.

As I entered a faint sound came to my ears.

I froze motionlessly, listening with taut nerves for a repetition of the slight scraping noise that had come to me. Perhaps it had only been my imagination…

Clasping my glassy knife in one brown fist, I strode forward on silent feet—twitched aside a fold of heavy drapery

The Winged Man stared back at me solemnly.

He was like one of the carved crystal statues magically vitalized; one of the weird figures in the painted frescoes, suddenly brought to life.

Tall and slim he was, his flesh palely golden, his slender torso and inhumanly elongated limbs devoid of hirsute adornment. His head, with its high, tapering skull, was startlingly alien; strange, yet beautiful in a way. He—for the nude figure was unabashedly masculine in gender—had great, sad eyes set under overhanging brows, and a soaring dome of a skull, hairless as a babe. From the center of the brows curving across the skull to the nape of his neck ran a stiff crest of darkly golden feathers. This verticle ruff stood about six inches high.

The eyes were orbs of mystic purple, luminous and liquid, and without whites—strikingly inhuman, yet there was a very human sadness and despondency about them as they stared solemnly into my own.

The most remarkable thing about him was his wings. These were folded back and towered high above his shoulders like the wings of a bat. Bat-like in their construction they were, too, a horny, tough membrane stretched between thin ribs of bone or cartilege. But they were feathered along the terminus of the membrane… and I saw, peering closer, that what I had at first glance mistaken for bird feathers was a kind of serpent scale, overlapping and convex, like human fingernails set in an overlapping series.

I later learned that it was by means of these curious hollow scale-feathers that the Winged Man controlled his flight to an exquisite degree; for the horny feathers permitted him to trim the pitch of his flight for all the world like the ailerons of Terrestrial aircraft.

The gaunt, golden figure sat hunched on a stool in a cage of light. An open cube composed of twelve segmented crystal rods composed the angles of this cube, and from each jewel-like segment a thread of brilliant light connected to another in a geometric web woven of pure radiance.

Something warned me not to permit my fingers to touch that scintillant web. I had extended my hand almost automatically—now, at the voiceless inner warning, I snatched my hand away. The Winged Man regarded me somberly, purple eyes haunted with an unspoken sorrow. A strange thought flashed through me—that the mysterious golden creature had inserted that flash of warning into my very mind.

Even as the notion occurred to me, something in the expression of those purple eyes apprised me of the truth of my assumption.

The Winged Man was telepathic.

On impulse, I strove to communicate with the captive creature. I strove to make my mind blank and receptive, to refrain from all thought, so that the vibrations of another brain might resonate through my own being. And in a moment a cold intelligence spoke within me.

I perceive you to be captive here, even as I, the gaunt, golden creature said mentally. I fumbled with words, uncertain as to method.

Speak aloud, if you wish. I will sense the meaning of your words more easily that way. You will observe that the members of my race, the Kaloodha, lack the auditory organs, the creature telepathed again, gesturing with one long-fingered hand at the sides of his head. I saw that he had no ears and that his skull tapered in an unbroken curve to the point of his long jaw. Oddly enough, this did not in any way seem a deformity; somehow it looked “right.”

“The—the Kaloodha?” I repeated. The golden creature nodded soberly.

The Kaloodha—the Flying Ones. We preceded mankind on this planet by a million years, but destroyed ourselves through our own unbridled folly. I, Zarqa, am the last living member of my species.

“Why does the science magician hold you prisoner in this cage of light?” I asked. The Winged One regarded me sadly.

So that he may wring from me by his torments the secrets of my vanished people, he replied. Already, of the Seven Savants, he has become first in his mastery of the ancient wisdom—and all, all, through my unwilling aid.

At last I knew the secret of Sarchimus the Wise! An actual member of the race which had built the City of Sotaspra was the ultimate source of his achievements in resurrecting the lost science of the Kaloodha!

And I had learned, as well, that six other searchers after the science magic of the Sotasprans shared the Dead City with him. Something of this I had long suspected, and from a remark which Sarchimus had let slip the night before, I had gained unsuspected further proof of my feeling. For I had often noticed, while staring out over the ruined metropolis from one of the balcony-like ornamental belvederes, that while most of the crystalline structures were dead and black and lusterless, a few buildings among them yet gleamed with vital color and living light, as did the Pylon of Sarchimus. Among these were an Opal Spire, a White Dome, and an Azure Minaret. Zarqa informed me that the savants who resided in these revitalized structures were named Hoom, Sarpasht, and Karoeth. These were the chief among the six rivals of Sarchimus the Wise, and of them all, it was Hoom of the Opal Spire who was the most dangerous and the most to be feared. “Room of the Many Eyes,” he was called; and it was said that little which occurred within the precincts of the Dead City of Sotaspra escaped his cunning notice.

The clue that Sarchimus had let slip, by the way, was that the crystal buildings fed on energy; thus, a building still luminous with color, and thus still powered, was most likely to be the residence of another savant such as Sarchimus himself.

Intrigued, I questioned Zarqa at length. I was puzzled as to how it had come to pass that he was the prisoner of the science magician—and, for that matter, how he still came to be living when the rest of his kind had perished from the hybrid predators a million years before. His answer was that, toward the final extinction of their race, the great brains of the Kaloodha had achieved a method of virtual immortality, whereby they hoped to prolong their lives for untold future ages. This recipe, which Zarqa referred to as the “Elixir of Light,” proved dangerous and erratic, and had at times the unexpected side effect of sterilizing males of the race, while it had no effect of any kind on the Kaloodha females. The race thus died out rapidly, not only due to the attack of the hideous plant-animal monstrosities bred, by the uncontrolled radiation factor, but because the males, immortal and sterile, outlived the females. Zarqa himself was the final survivor of his kind, and was more than a million years old. He had dwelt here in the Scarlet Pylon, alone with his memories amid the ruins of his people, until the coming of Sarchimus, who discovered him during a period of slumber or aestivation, when he was virtually helpless. I gathered that, to relieve the boredom and monotony of his unending existence, the Winged One periodically fell into a self-induced state akin to hibernation, during which he slept a century or a millennium by.

Further questioning revealed the secret of the amazing white stone statues I had marveled over during my early exploration of the tower. A vital factor in the composition of the Elixir was a certain rare ingredient whose absence causes petrification rather than immortality. Those of the Kaloodha who had unwisely experimented with the incomplete formula were turned to eternal stone!

And thus I became that most miserable of all living beings, the last of my own kind, Zarqa concluded his story. I am the Last Kalood, and when at length I perish from the mistreatment or the neglect of Sarchimus, then is my glorious race truly extinct. But Sarchimus hopes to doom himself to a similar fate, although he understands it not. For he strives to wring from me the recipe for the Elixir of Light, whereby he will become as immortal as I. Thus far I have resisted his importunities as best I could, but for seven and seventy days now he has denied me the golden mead which is the nutriment upon which my kind subsist, and I am greatly weakened and fear I cannot for very long withstand his urgings.

“How long can the Kaloodha survive without this mead?” I asked, and he replied that after one hundred days of total deprivation a Kalood was usually too weakened and sunken in apathy to respond favorably to the remarkable vivifying powers of the nutritive substance.

The Kaloodha, incidentally, had found they required the golden mead with all the fervor of addiction. This, too, was an unsuspected side effect of the immortality process; prior to their immortalization they had subsisted upon the usual varieties of nutriment enjoyed by ordinary humans—hence, of course, the supplies of perfectly preserved foodstuffs available on every tier, upon which Sarchimus and I had been dining.

It will be an ill service to the folk of the world, to loose upon them a Sarchimus made immortal, he added sadly. Already has he forced from me many secrets of weaponry and stealth and the dealing of death at a distance. But recently I have divulged the mode by which metal automatons may be vitalized and directed by a single will; from such he can compose an invulnerable army of robots to overrun the tree cities and to bring all nations of your kind under his dominance.

The prospect was horrifying, and the hairs prickled on my neck at the thought that had I not ventured to violate the sanctity of those apartments sealed by the Scarlet Hand I would have gone all-unknowing of the terrible menace Sarchimus posed to the World of the Green Star.

But now you must go quickly, and return to those apartments wherein you are permitted to reside, the mental voice whispered. For I detect the approach of the magnetic flux, and deduce that Sarchimus is returning from his mission.

I bid the sad-eyed Kalood farewell, promising to aid him if I could, and replaced the draperies concealing the force-prison in which the science magician held captive the million-year-old Winged Man.

Chapter 9 HOOM OF THE MANY EYES

The day which followed, and the day thereafter, Sarchimus was busied in those workrooms and chambers which adjoined the dark hall wherein the gaunt, golden Kalood was imprisoned in a cubicle of intangible energy, so I had no further opportunity to converse with the sad-eyed creature I pitied and whom I had already begun to think of as a potential friend and unexpected ally.

It would seem that what Zarqa had told me was no less than the truth itself. For Sarchimus was engaged in energizing the automatons whereof the Winged Man had spoken. Tall, ungainly things of sparkling brass with featureless visors for faces they were; and the metal automaton that came to clanking life under the hands of Sarchimus was only the first of many. The thing stood seven feet tall, its hands great spiked mauls, and it looked like nothing more than a suit of medieval armor brought to life. Sarchimus paraded the metal monstrosity before me, and I could not repress a shudder of revulsion which he doubtless mistook for superstitious terror.

On the third day after my conversation with the Kalood, there came an unexpected break in the monotony of my internment in the Scarlet Pylon. It was not the first time that Sarchimus had sent me on an errand, but it was the first errand that took me outside of the fortress tower. The goal of my errand was a supply of miniature energy crystals which were concealed in a vault beneath one of the buildings of the city, a trilobed dome which Sarchimus described to me in such minute detail that I could not possibly mistake it. The crystals he required for the vitalization of further automatons, since those crystals already in his store proved too large to fit the mountings.

In preparation for my venture out into the Dead City, the savant set about the base of my throat a peculiar collar or yoke of some ropy, translucent stuff. This collar fitted snugly, but not too close to interfere with my breathing.

“Now, attend closely to my words, boy,” he said in measured tones. “I am sending you forth because I am not able to go myself, since the crop of brain crystals in my breeding vats will attain maturity at any hour and will spoil if I am not at hand to insert them into the skulls of my automatons. But do not think to seize upon this errand as a chance for escape! Know that this collar which I have bound about your throat is a length of Live Rope whose reflexes are attuned to the vibratory emanations of this Pylon. I have adjusted the reflexes to a nicety; you may safely venture as far as the trilobate dome, but to go further from the Pylon will cause the collar to tighten about your throat. It will draw tighter with every farasang you journey, and should you go as far as three farasangs from the Pylon, the Live Rope will strangle you to death.”

He eyed me with a severe expression on his usually serene features. “And do not think to cut the Rope and escape, for the reflex patterns will instinctively convulse the Rope to the point of instant strangulation at the touch of a blade. Do you understand?”

I nodded, affecting a dispiritedness which I did not, in fact, feel. For Sarchimus could not, of course, have known it, but to flee from the Pylon at this time was the matter furthest from my thoughts. I would not have dreamed of escaping without having somehow attempted to release the sad-eyed Kalood from his force-prison.

“But, master,” I asked, “how shall I get to the trilobate dome unscathed? For you have told me that the streets and structures of the city are the haunt of terrible monsters, such as the saloogs, and of yet other brutes even more fearsome.”

He produced a small talisman of multilayered crystal and foil, shaped like a locket.

“Fasten this to your wrist or girdle,” he counseled. “It broadcasts an energy wave precisely opposite to the lifeforce of the plant-animal hybrids, and they will instinctively avoid its proximity. Now begone!”

I descended the lower tiers unmenaced, observing that the savant was correct in his assumption that the wrist-talisman held the hybrids at bay. For crawler-vines writhed frantically from my path and lumbering saloogs fled squealing at my approach. The portal of the tower stood ajar, fronting on a street choked with moldering debris all overgrown with peculiar large flowers of a distinctly unwholesome aspect. Their huge, fleshy petals were covered with disklike suckers such as adorn the tentacles of octopuses and there hung about them the stench of rotting offal and decayed meat. Although the cannibal blossoms jerked aside on their segmented stalks as I made my way between them, I did not breathe easily until I had passed them by a wide margin.

The city presented a scene of such decay and desolation as I have never before encountered. Magnificent buildings of superb crystals lay broken and crumbling to every side, their sparkling stones blackened and dead. The streets that wound between the ruined mansions were like a rankly grown jungle, teeming with weird predatory life. The radiations of the crystals had indeed twisted awry the forces of evolution, and to every hand I saw fantastic hybrids of plant and beast such as might have been drawn from the nightmares of Hieronymus Bosch. Birdlike aerial creatures that resembled flying flowers fluttered overhead; trees that bore for fruit mad, glaring eyeballs bent their insane multi-orbed gaze upon me; prowling, hideous, composite monsters of every description avoided my path in terror.

And so I made my way safely down into the central city, glad of the open air again. All about, filling the sky, rose the immense trees of the Green Star World, like arboreal Everests. Shafts of mingled jade and golden sunlight fell through masses of foliage like vast cloud-canopies. Here and there wild zaiphs flashed like winged glittering jewels far above me. Somewhere in this mysterious and unexplored wilderness was the exquisite princess whom I loved; but whether alive or dead, whether safely among her people, or imprisoned among her enemies, I could not say…

Without difficulty I entered the trilobate dome and ransacked its crypts for the energy crystals which would vitalize the metal automatons. I found a bin of those of the appropriate size, and filled the knapsacks. I regained the upper street level again without mishap. The collar of Live Rope was firm about my throat but its stricture caused me no discomfort.

Bending my steps back to the Scarlet Tower, I was suddenly accosted by a stranger. He was a mild-faced, smiling man of amazing obesity, gowned in a robe of woven metal which glistened with iridescent hues like a cloth spun of rainbows. Fat men are rare among the Laonese, whose racial type runs to slenderness and a certain effeminate delicacy. Nevertheless, with his wobbling paunch, triple chins, and plump, smiling cheeks, the stranger was Laonese, as his amber skin and lisping speech denoted. He was very bald, and although he resembled nothing so much as a plump, placid Buddha, with an external smile fixed on his lips, I could not help noticing that this mildness did not extend as far as his eyes, for they were cold and shrewd and calculating, like chips of frozen ink.

“Are you not the boy who serves Sarchimus of the Scarlet Pylon?” he inquired in a soft, wheezing voice. I nodded, recognizing him from the descriptions given me by Zarqa.

“I am; and you would be Hoom of the Many Eyes, the arch-rival of my master,” I said, which must have surprised him, for he blinked in consternation, and then forced a chuckle.

“Such quickness of mind!” he said admiringly. “My dear colleague has acquired a treasure of perspicacity to assist him in his distinguished labors! But I assure you, my young friend, that the esteemed and worthy Sarchimus and I are but professional competitors, and that our rivalry is devoid of personal rancor.”

“That may be,” I said evenly, wishing that my master had seen fit to arm me with some weapon—for I doubted not this obese, mild-faced man was about as harmless as a phuol, and equally as venomous. “But you delay my return to my master’s abode. What is it that you desire of me?”

“To be of service to you, my young friend,” he said smilingly. A certain note of pity entered his tones. “For I am in possession of certain information of the greatest value to you, which bears upon your personal safety.”

“To what do you refer?” I inquired guardedly.

“My poor young friend, you think me your enemy and Sarchimus your friend, but, permit me to reassure you, the facts are otherwise.” He shot me a shrewd, cunning glance, obviously noticing that I was on guard and restive to be gone.

“I know something you do not know,” he said softly.

“The reason why your master rescued you from death, and keeps you about him.”

I was taken aback. How cleverly had Hoom read me! Of course, this was the one vital morsel of information I lacked; and something on which I had often conjectured.

“And what reason is that?” I asked. He smiled, beaming at me benignly.

“Alas, youth, you have fallen into the hands of a ruthless and inhumane master!” he said, shaking his head dolefully. “Your master experiments with a hazardous medicinal called the Elixir of Light, whose side effects are as dangerous as they are unpredictable. Three captives in his Pylon have already reached their untimely demise during his experimentations; now the cruel and egocentric Sarchimus has arrived at a final formulation, which he intends to test upon your helpless person within mere days. The despicable and treacherous Sarchimus encountered you in the veritable knick of time, for he was down to his last human test-subject when he chanced to discover you staked out for death under the stings of the phuol. Should you unfortunately succumb to the unknown effects of the Elixir, he will have left only a certain adventurer from Phaolon the Jewel City, who fell into his clutches some time ago.”

A thrill of excitement went through me… who could it be, whom the savant held captive? If Hoom spoke the truth, and if a citizen of Phaolon was secreted somewhere within the Scarlet Pylon, he could perchance lead me back to the realm of my lost princess!

I fixed a stern eye upon the fat little man in robes of shimmering opalescence.

“I think you lie, Hoom; for I have searched the tower of my master from base to crest, discovering no human captives.”

He shook his head as if bemoaning my distrust of his motives.

“Your suspicions are unfounded, and I regret heartily that you mistake me for a prevaricator! You will find the last of a party of explorers from Phaolon concealed in a wall compartment on the seventeenth tier of your master’s edifice, in a soundproof cubicle marked with a symbol—thus and such—which may be opened for view and converse in such-and-such a manner… “

I listened to him closely, reserving my trust until he should be proved innocent of my suspicions. The mere fact that he knew of the Elixir of Light and its dangerous unpredictability alone partially convinced me; but his motive for apprising me of my present danger was still unclear. I inquired sharply on this point.

“Common humanity, my lad, impels me to this act of simple charity! However, my humane instincts go even further than this, and I am anxious to assist you in escaping from the toils of this cruel and cunning monster who masquerades self-interest behind the guise of altruism. But I fear there is no safety for you, my dear child, until the unscrupulous Sarchimus has met his just deserts…”

“In other words, you suggest I should kill the one who saved my life?” I asked.

He bemoaned my cynicism, but applauded my perceptiveness.

“A fitting end,” he observed, “betrayed by one whom he would himself betray!”

I considered the situation thoughtfully, and said; “Well, it’s true enough that I wish to escape from the tower. But I need a map of this part of the world, with nearby cities clearly marked, and some method of swift transport—a saddled zaiph, perhaps…”

From beneath his robes, Hoom smilingly produced a tightly-rolled scroll of parchment. “I have anticipated your desires;” he wheezed, eyes shrewd. “Not for nothing am I called ‘Hoom of the Many Eyes’; I have observed your fruitless search of the librarium, deduced that you desire orientation in order to attempt the journey to a friendly kingdom, and have myself prepared a cartographic guide. As for a steed, one is already to hand that is swifter and more tireless than any zaiph yet bred; I refer to the aerial contrivance which rides a magnetic flux.”

“The skysled? But I don’t know how to operate it!”

“That, too, I have anticipated, and this document provides clear instruction into the modes of piloting the vehicle,” he said.

“What is your price for these gifts?”

He shrugged, spreading both pudgy hands.

“The death of Sarchimus. For too long has he lorded the superiority of his accomplishments over we lesser students of the ancient mystery-science! With the demise of Sarchimus, the worthiest and most intellectual of his competitors can hope to inherit his secrets.”

“I gather you refer to yourself.” I smiled.

He beamed with smug aplomb, but did not deny it.

“Well, I will accept these documents—as presents, not as bribes,” I said finally. “As for slaying my master, well, I will do what has to be done in order to protect myself from treachery; more than that, I cannot promise.”

“No more than that is needed,” said Hoom of the Many Eyes. “For a youth as perceptive as yourself has doubtless ascertained by pure logic that there is no safety in flight unless he who would pursue is—ah—unable to do so.”

I nodded without further words and accepted the map and the instructions to operating the skysled. But privately I determined that, rather than commit cold-blooded murder on one who, after all, had rescued me from certain death and nursed me to health again, I would simply free Zarqa and escape in the skysled. Since there was only one such vehicle in the Pylon, Sarchimus would be unable to pursue me and my safety was thus insured.

I returned to the Scarlet Pylon with the crystals, my mind busy with plans and conjectures, anxious, first of all, to discover if Hoom had been accurate in stating a Phaolonian prisoner was concealed in the tower. Finding him was the first item on my agenda; flight and freedom, the second.

Chapter 10 JANCHAN OF PHAOLON

There came on the very next day the opportunity for which I waited. The brain crystals had matured in the breeding vats, and the power crystals I had procured on my mission beyond the tower fitted their mountings perfectly; so for the entire day Sarchimus was fully occupied in vitalizing and testing his new army of automatons. Since there were so many of these, he selected the largest single chamber in the Scarlet Pylon for that purpose, said chamber being, of course, the immense hall in which I had earlier discovered the host of white crystalline statues which were, in actuality, the petrified Kaloodha.

Once my master was engaged in this activity, I wasted no time in descending to the seventeenth tier and seeking out the apartment sealed with the Scarlet Hand. I found it a clutter of apparatus of inexplicable design and purpose, but, scrutinizing the walls, I found behind a gorgeous tapestry a panel marked with the small, unobtrusive symbol Hoom had described; operating the catch according to his instructions, I fitted my eye to a small hole thus revealed and peered within.

A young man of noble demeanor and handsome visage reclined on a divan within the secret compartment. From his jeweled trappings I knew him at once for a courtier of Phaolon, although, as it chanced, not one with whom I had become acquainted during my former incarnation at the court of Niamh the Fair.

Below the eyehole was a small speaking-tube into which I spoke. The young man sprang to his feet, staring around in a bewildered fashion.

“Have no fear,” I said through the speaking-tube. “I am not your captor, but a captive like yourself. My name is Karn the Hunter, the son of Athgar, of the Red Dragon nation.”

Pressing my ear to the orifice, I discovered I could hear the young man clearly enough.

“I know not where you are concealed,” he said in a pleasant baritone, “nor how your voice addresses me from empty air in this manner, but I greet you in comradeship, my fellow captive. I am Prince Janchan of Phaolon, of the House of the Ptolnim.”

“How did you come into your present captivity?” I inquired.

“The Princess of Phaolon disappeared on a hunting expedition to observe the Dance of the Zaiph,” he said. “It is believed that she fell prey to a tree monster, and it remains unknown as to whether she lives or has been slain. But we among her loyal courtiers, knowing her to have vanished in the company of that greathearted hero, the Kyr Chong, believe that a chance exists that she yet lives, and have sworn to search until finding proof positive of her woeful demise. I left the Jewel City in the company of a score of youths of noble or aristocratic birth, all sworn to the quest of the princess. Alas, those who survived the perils of the wild were taken captive by this vile enchanter, who benumbed our senses with a narcotic aroma and who has held us prisoner here for an unguessable period. One by one my brave comrades have vanished from their compartments, to venture to an unknown fate; and of all our company, I fear I alone am left.”

My heart beat violently at this report. Well did I know of these events—I who had been the Lord Chong in my previous incarnation on the Green Star World—I who had followed my beloved into peril and who had protected her as best I could from the thousand dangers of the giant trees, until the treacherous blow of a cowardly foe struck me down in the moment of ultimate hazard. Often had we speculated, Niamh and I, while roaming the branches of the mighty trees or enjoying the temporary haven of the Secret City of the Outlaws, that courageous and noble chevaliers of Phaolon were even at that same moment combing the great forest for some trace of our whereabouts. My heart went out to the bold young princeling, Janchan, for his dedication; and I resolved to delay my escape until I should be able to effect his release as well as Zarqa’s.

In few and hasty words I told him of the events leading to my own captivity, and of the supposed motives of Sarchimus in holding us, and informed him of the suspected fate of his missing comrades. I also conveyed to him something of my plans for escape, but, upon the attempt, I could find no means of securing entry into the cell wherein he was confined. I searched as long as I dared, without managing to locate a catch or lock, and was eventually forced to abandon my quest. Bidding a hasty adieu to Prince Janchan, I told him I would return for a further try later.

My master Sarchimus was still busied with the vivification of his horde of automatons, who clanked noisily about the enormous hall, bumping into balustrades, clumsily smashing the statue-like forms of the petrified Kaloodha, and getting in each other’s way.

Assuming that it would be an hour or so before my master had completed his tasks and had brought the brain crystals of the metal creatures into attunement with the vibrations of his own will, I ventured to the private suite where Zarqa himself was confined within the force-prison. I found the sad-eyed being much the same as on my earlier visit, and hastened to apprise him of the swift march of events. He evinced no surprise at the warnings of Hoom, gloomily admitting he had guessed the savant had captured me so that I could serve his needs as an extra test-subject.

While I have thus far withstood the torments and deprivations he has visited upon me, the gaunt, bewinged Kalood said mentally, somewhat of the formula for the Elixir is known to Sarchimus. That is, he knows the ingredients—all save one—although he does not know the proportions of the mixture, or the timing and interval and duration of the admixing process. I had not known of the human captives, but had deduced from hints he let fall that he had tested provisional versions of the recipe upon hapless subjects of some kind.

The Winged Man was unable to be of any material assistance to me in my scheme of escape. He himself was unable to escape from the energy web which held him prisoner, whose lock was attuned to the personality of Sarchimus himself; neither could he explain how to set free the Phaolonian princeling, whose cubicle was doubtless secured in a similar manner. I left after this, promising not to flee until I had assisted my comrades in misfortune to escape with me. But how I might work this was still unknown.

That night my master surprised me by an unwonted display of amiability. He invited me to share his evening repast in the sumptuous apartments given over to his personal uses. Generally the savant kept quite aloof from my company, so this gesture of friendly hospitality was quite unusual. I accepted his invitation to dine with him gratefully; for it might yet prove that he was not so vile and despicable a villain as the cunning words of Hoom would make him out to be. On this point I determined to reserve all judgment.

The dining alcove was a chamber hung with cloth-of-silver draperies whose glimmering highlights were eerily akin to the strange quicksilver eyes of Sarchimus himself. My master was robed in soft purple stuff, and, for this occasion, had set aside his customary cold aloofness of manner; we conversed on a variety of subjects, reclining on divans drawn up to a metal taboret laden with rare delicacies. His manner was, if not actually ingratiating, at least animated and sympathetic. He questioned me at length concerning my birth, my former life in the wild, and such inconsequential matters as childhood diseases and the average state of health my parents had enjoyed.

I found his choice of conversational topics unusual, to say the least, but set the matter aside as due merely to his solitary habits, which had given him little experience in social mixing.

The foods were deliciously spiced and mostly unfamiliar to my palate. The principal beverage was a bitterly chilled wine likewise unfamiliar, although thoroughly delicious.

After fruit and pastry, Sarchimus invited me to sample a rare liqueur, and produced a green, effervescent brandy of extraordinary bouquet. I sipped it cautiously, found it heady and delicious, and drank it to the lees.

A numbness ran through me; my limbs became leaden; the empty goblet fell from my nerveless fingers to thud against the deep-woven carpet.

“What…” I gasped. The science magician smiled, his glittering eyes hooded and unreadable.

I attempted to struggle to my feet, but found myself bound as if with invisible chains to the divan. In a moment I was incapable even of speech and could only lie there, helpless though fully conscious, staring with an expression of astonishment at the savant.

He rose to his feet and approached my couch. Bending over me, he seized me by a handful of my tousled gold mane and pulled my face around so that I was staring directly up into his own. Then he struck me a sharp blow across the mouth. The pain that must have flickered in my eyes seemed to please him, for he smiled slightly.

“Excellent! The drug has caused complete paralysis, with no loss of consciousness, and you are fully capable of experiencing pain. Now, at last, comes the moment I have waited for!”

He picked me up in his arms and strode into an inner chamber, which I saw was outfitted like a chemical laboratorium. Flasks and canisters and quantities of spiral glass tubing littered porcelain tables drawn beneath long windows, heavily draped.

I was completely incapable of speech or movement, and helpless to resist him in the slightest. With rough but impersonal hands he stripped away my tunic, and spread out my naked body on the floor of the chamber in an area bathed with brilliant light from a lamp suspended from the ceiling above. The strangling collar was still clasped about my throat, for he had not seen fit to remove it upon my return from my mission into the Dead City. Now he neutralized its gripping reflexes by a touch from the electrical rod cased against his thigh, stripped the loose, wormlike plastic thing away and tossed it into a corner.

I lay naked, spread-eagled in the pool of merciless light while he bound my wrists and legs to rings of steely glass set in the floor. There seemed no possible reason for binding me, as the narcotic had me completely paralyzed, but he did it nonetheless.

Then he crossed the room to the porcelain tables and busied himself preparing a flask of some lucent and sparkling fluid that seemed to glow with an inner luminosity of its own. The chemical mixture was clear as water, but heavy as oil or mercury, and imbued with glittering motes of incandescent light. With a sinking heart I guessed its nature and my own fate—against which, it is true, I had been warned.

As he prepared the clean sparkling fluid, Sarchimus spoke to me in a casual tone of voice. He addressed me in an offhand manner whose calm tones belied the inner excitement visible in his face.

“For very long have I sought to perfect this chemical, which is termed the Elixir of Light,” he said. “The precise formulation of the recipe has eluded my researches, although I have discovered the principal ingredients. Variation upon variation have I tested, and each has proven a dismal failure. But today, at long last, the being whose mind contains the perfect formula has divulged it to me, and undying life is within my reach.”

A prickling of terror went through me. My nakedness tingled with superstitious fear—yet I could not move. There was naught that I could do but lay there helpless and listen to his serene, gloating voice as he prepared the mixture.

“I don’t know why I bother to tell you all this,” he said, with an unsteady laugh. “I can hardly expect an untutored savage from the wild to understand the secrets of transcendent chemistry! But I am no such fool as to trust my captive; first I will try the mixture on you, and if you derive no ill effects from it, then and then only will I down the Elixir myself…”

He approached me, a beaker of lambent fluid clenched in one slender hand.

Kneeling beside me, he lifted my head and forced the fluid down my throat.

The voluntary muscle-centers of my body were hopelessly paralyzed, but the involuntary centers were unaffected by the drug he had slipped into my brandy. If it had not been so, I would have died, my heartbeat stilling, my lungs failing to expand, permitting me to draw breath. And swallowing, too, is an involuntary action.

The Elixir was tasteless but deathly cold. A numbness spread through me as the fluid was poured down my throat.

I waited for death. Or for the creeping death of petrification.

Sarchimus hung over me, his features pale and taut, glistening with a sheen of perspiration. The agony in his eyes was terrible to see.

Then the numbness that had spread through the center of my being was replaced by a glowing warmth. Vigor surged up within me and the fires of life burned high. A glorious surge of fresh new energy blazed within me—a wondrous new strength went flaming through every fiber of my being!

The expression of agonized suspense in the quicksilver eyes that observed me turned eagerly to a wild joy.

My young chest rose and fell. My thews swelled with the surge of new power. I could feel the strength grow within me; almost I could have thrown off the effects of the narcotic. My sinews trembled and, in the next moment, I was free of the numbness of the drug and fighting the bonds with furious strength. Had they not been fashioned of the incredibly durable transparent metal which was as common on the World of the Green Star as iron is on Earth, I have no doubt I could have burst my chains, for my strength was as the strength of three men in those glorious moments. But they were of the lucent metal I privately thought of as glassteel, and all my strength was helpless against them.

Unholy joy transformed the normally impassive visage of the savant to a mask of ecstacy. He snatched up the beaker from its stand with trembling hands and poured the sparkling fluid down his own throat—