He assumed the clothing of a Rilké War-Chief without protest, adding one thing only of his own: he hooked the scabbard of the golden sword onto the rings set in the leathern girdle. Regarding himself in the mirror when finished, he thought he looked absurd. Utterly. But, when in Rome . . . whatever “Rome” was!
“I do wish y’d let me come with y’, sir,” Gundorm Varl grumbled as he set to leave. But the invitation was clearly only for Raul alone, so he sternly bade Gundorm to stay in their suite and out of mischief—and left.
The Chahuna guided him through a maze of corridors up to a great, double-leaved door of heavy black chingti wood, bound with copper and set with flat studs of copper as huge as a jralley-tray. Before this imposing portal stood a guard: a Faftol, black as oiled ebony, thewed like a titan, a head taller even than Raul’s six-foot-four, and naked except for a red cloth about his loins. He held across his thighs a mighty hammer, as he stood spread-legged before the door: a terrible, blunt ugly weapon—a huge thing of solid iron that must have weighed thirty or forty pounds, and could smash a man aside as easily as one swats a fly. From the amazing ropes of muscle that stood out on his naked arms, and writhed like serpents of living jet across the width of his chest and shoulders, it looked as if the Faftol could use it with ease.
“The Shakar Lin-ton, at the bidding of the Kahani,” his guide announced.
“So this is he, eh? A real man at last! Salute, kazarl” the giant Faftol rumbled in a deep-chested voice, grinning with a flash of white teeth.
Raul returned the greeting, eying the nude giant with respect, from his shaven black skull and the enormous rubies that flashed in his earlobes, he seemed to be a privileged member of the Royal Suite.
“You may go in: she is expecting you.”
Linton noted the peculiar emphasis on the personal pronoun; he filed it for later reference. He was to discover that those closest to the Kahani worshiped her with a degree of love and awe usually reserved for a deity.
He started to pass, and stopped as if he had run into a wall of stone. The giant Faftol had blocked his way with an outstretched arm.
“The sword, Shakar. None pass Zambar with a weapon. I will hold it safe for thee!”
Raul flushed, and felt his face tighten. Since Sharl had given him Asloth, the golden sword had not left his thigh. He did not intend to part with it now.
He considered the black giant with cold, flaring eyes. In the mood he had been in ever since his “interview” with Dykon Mather yesterday, the least hint of restraint or control over his thoughts or actions infuriated him like a whiplash.
“Very well.”
He turned on his heel, and spoke briefly to the Chahuna.
“Bar-Kusac, you may tell the Kahani for me that if she wishes to speak to me, she must come to my quarters. I keep my sword by me.”
He started to stride back down the corridor along the way he had come. The Chahuna came pattering after him.
“Kazarl Kazar! What do you do—where do you go? The lady has commanded your presence!”
“I am neither the Kahani’s subject, nor her servant, nor her slave. If she desires to meet with me, it shall be on my terms—or not at all. I am her guest, and on my world a host trusts his guests and allows them to retain their weapons, if so they desire. Tell that to the Kahani!”
“It shall not be necessary.”
A cold fluting, silvery voice. They both turned with surprise to see the mighty valves of chingti now lay open, and a slim, small figure wrapped in scarlet and green silks closely molding her figure, stood within the entrance.
“Are you—the Kahani?” Linton blurted.
The girl smiled.
“I am the least of her servants. But you may retain your beautiful sword, Commander Linton. Zambar, O naughty one! This is a great lord, a Shakar from beyond the stars. You must not annoy him! Come, Commander—”
Zambar stepped aside to let them pass. And he grinned widely as Linton strode through the mighty door.
“See? What did I say—did I say the vokarthu Shakar was a real man!” he chuckled, to no one in particular.
The valves closed ponderously behind Linton, and he looked around. All was dim light and gauzy veils of silken stuff and eddying clouds of sweet, heavy incense … he felt rather dazed and awkwardly out of place. Turning, he was surprised to find himself alone: the servant-girl had vanished somewhere, and his Chahuna guide had apparently remained outside in the corridor with the black giant. He looked about, irritably, and saw a black opening behind half-drawn silk draperies. He headed for it.
It led him to a long hall, nearly two hundred paces in length and unlit, save that he could see a brilliantly illuminated chamber at the other end. He followed the dark hallway, dimly sensing the scrutiny of hidden eyes following his lean, raw-boned height. Female eyes, he suspected. Almost as he could hear the smothered whisper of womanish giggles; self-consciously he straightened his shoulders, face burning, and wished he did not feel so very much a fool.
The unlit hall opened into a room of such immensity and of such stunning magnificence that he paused, dazzled. The walls were crusted with very ancient mosaic designs in many- colored glass squares. A veil of sheerest, peach-yellow gauze stretched across the room before him, and standing at wide intervals about the mosaic wall and along the partition of gauze were massive candlesticks of pure silver, standing as high as his hip and as large around as small barrels. Towering out of these were truly gigantic candles taller than a man and thicker around than his thigh, of creamy, whitest wax, casting a brilliant and flattering illumination that glowed and sparkled from the gray-and-yellow, highly polished marble tiles upon the floor, and flashed from the glassy, intricate mosaics as if they had been fashioned entirely of precious gems. Here and there about the floor were rugs of cream- white snowcat fur, each worth a year’s salary at the pay-rate of his Naval career.
It was a scene of sumptuous, barbaric splendor, fantastic to his rude, back-country Border eyes: an opium dream … a vision of forgotten opulence, Byzantine in its richness and intensity, almost savoring of Salammbo’s Carthage or Haroun’s Baghdad.
“Commander …”
A woman appeared, from behind the peach-hued gauze curtain. Another girl, different from the one who had met him at the door. This one was gowned in black-and-gold brocade which hugged her slim body. The girl at the door had been very attractive: this one was breathtakingly lovely. She gestured—
The gauze draperies opened and slid aside. Facing him across the huge room, a young girl sat on a throne of jet black marble, veined with irridescence like a peacock’s hues, fiery opal, green, blue and rust.
When he saw her face, he forgot the rest of the room.
Raul Linton knew very little about women. But he knew genuine beauty for the very rare thing it is when he saw it. He saw it now… .
She was young—very young. She looked seventeen or eighteen. (He knew she must be at least in her early twenties.) Her face was a calm, pure oval deliciously colored, like her bare arms, a superb creamy-brown, tawny, without flaw. She had a small, round, stubborn chin. And eyes large, clear, wide-spaced beneath level, winging brows … eyes that tilted ever so slightly at their comers … eyes of the blackest black imaginable. Intense. Magnetic. Compelling—almost hypnotic. Her nose was small and straight; her cheeks flushed faintly with natural, healthy rose. Her brow was broad and high, denoting intellect. She held her small, dainty head high, proudly, queenly. Queenly, too, were her straight, exquisite shoulders, and the delicate, soft, sweetly-arched bow of her warm red lips. She wore no cosmetics whatever.