For a moment, baffled fury blazed like hellfire from the fat yellow face of the shaman … then his features closed to their habitual placidity.
“I … am … not … sure.”
Tonguth scratched one hairy jowl uneasily, not accustomed to such intellectual exercises. He shook his head doggedly.
“It just does not follow. This is the man who saved the Master’s life but yesternight. If he’s an enemy, a spy, or an agent of Cal—of Him—why prevent the Master from being murdered one moment … then steal his prisoner the next?”
Abdekiel’s cold reptilian eyes clouded at this thought, and he wavered, indecision written across his impassive features. Then noticing a brawny Star Rover shouldering roughly through the circle of gaping onlookers, he rapped sharply:
“Those questions, Chieftain, I cannot answer … now. But we shall see. There are ways to find the gem of truth even in a swamp of falsehood such as we have here. Ho— you there—Shangkar!”
The Rover chopped his way through the crowd, using the flat of his axe and cursing sulphurously. The crowd scattered before him. He came before the Chieftain and Abdekiel, saluting casually.
“What’s afoot here, Lords?” he demanded harshly.
Perion’s keen eye shrewdly raked him from helm to heel. Where Drask was a lean brown hawk of a man, and Tonguth a burly bull, Shangkar was a lithe, fierce-eyed panther, all sliding sinewy muscle and tough whipcord. Hot eyes burned beneath a heavy brow crowned with a winged helm of plain bronze. A rich blue cloak swung from broad, naked shoulders. His lean face was cleanshaven, with cruel, thin lips. Naked save for a rude harness of leather and iron, his long body was burnt brown-orange by the sun, tawny as a range-lion.
Abdekiel gave swift, terse commands. A grinning band of Rovers closed about the frightened girl and the little Piper. Shangkar’s iron hand clamped down on the whimpering juggler’s thin arm.
Abdekiel surveyed the group with an oily smirk of self-satisfaction.
“Take them before the Warlord, who sits this hour, I doubt not, in the Hall of Zargon, Lord of Punishments and Rewards, dispensing justice!”
Whimpering, Perion lifted an imploring hand.
“But what have I done, Lord Shaman, that I should be treated so? First my goods—ah, my little brass lamp!— are stolen from me by this thieving wench! Then am I seized up by these great grinning men and borne off as if I, myself, were a thief! I am innocent, Lord—innocent!”
Abdekiel shrugged elaborately, but doubt still glittered in his small, slitted eyes.
“Between appearances and words I cannot choose—as yet. But we shall see, small fool, what tunes you play when you stand in the place of judgment and face the wrath of Drask of the Varkonna …”
They made their way through the crowded, silent bazaar of a hundred worlds, past scores of dirty, gawking faces, towards the great palace that had been home to the Argion-Princes and now was camp of the Warlord of the Star Rovers.
Above, against a burning sky of fierce acetylene-blue, the long horn-hawk still circled. Its small, rapacious brain knew only hunger and mating-lust, and was never disturbed by the strange medley of emotions that boiled in the blood of men far below its lofty realm… .
5.
IN THE HALL OF ZARGON
THEY STOOD in a great circular chamber of naked stone. Against the further wall loomed up into the dimness of the far, domed roof above a great idol formed in the likeness of a throned Titan. Before its stone feet, brazen tripods sent wavering up the pale green and scented smoke of burnt cinnamon, mingled with white spikenard from far Dolmentus.
Gigantic in the gloom, the face of Zargon stared broodingly down.
Chryselephantine, it was formed of two kinds of stone, welded together by fire-magic. Half of its kingly, bearded visage was in the fashion of a stern but smiling Rewarder. And this side of the God’s face was hewn of Irian marble, blue in color, for that is the Hue of Mercy. The other side of the face was a snarling, fanged mask of rage, cunningly worked in the deep red alabaster which the Tigermen mine from the desert hills of Bartosca, growling beneath the electrical lash of the Winged People who are their masters.
The dual nature of Zargon was seen throughout his titanic idol. From one blue shoulder spread a sheltering eagle-wing; from the crimson, a clawed bat-pinion arched menacingly. One mighty hand clasped the Rod of Forgivingness; the other, a hideous, scaled bird-claw, held the jagged Mace of Punishment.
Upon his knees the blue and crimson idol bore the Balance of Justice, in which the souls of men are weighed in the hour of their death.
Throned on the rude King-bench of the Rovers, between Zargon’s feet, the Warlord brooded ominously. The burning rapier of his gaze flickered from one to another of the faces before him in the center of the Hall. Perion skulked to one side of the others, knees atremble, sniveling with his face in his hands. Lurn stood tall and proud, having recovered her composure. Her eyes were downcast, but no token of submission was visible in her stance. Abdekiel, blandly smiling, arms tucked in his deep, mouse-gray sleeves, stood with the Rover Chieftains. By his side Tonguth glowered, his dull wits still struggling to piece sense out of a pattern of conflicting evidence.
There was silence now: all stories had been told, and retold. Drask surveyed the two chief players in this little drama with derision in his fierce hawk-gold eyes.
“So. We have had words, and words, and—words,” Drask said, and there was a sly, dangerous softness in his hard tones, like a steel blade sheathed in silk. “Among all these arguments and explanations, however, I do not find a word of truth.”
“Ah, the liqueurs of my native land … my little lamp!” Perion whimpered faintly.
Drask’s basilisk-gaze swiveled to bathe the Piper in its icy glare. Perion wilted, hiding his face behind trembling fingers.
“Piper …” the Warlord purred.
“Mercy, Dread Lord—I did nothing! It was this girl … this wicked, wicked girl, who stole all my pretties and hid her great ugly body in my hamper!”
Not a muscle in the Warlord’s iron visage moved, but inwardly he was as puzzled as the others. Instinct and reason told him the scrawny little sniveler lied. It was too fantastic to conceive the dancing girl capable of concealing herself so adroitly, that she should baffle his keenest huntsmen all night and well into the following morning. Spy though she was, he did not believe the wench had it in her to think so coolly, act so adeptly. Or was she indeed a spy? Perhaps her account of how she had come by the Green Goddess’ talisman was, in point of fact, truth … which would mean she was not a spy and therefore was naught but a silly, quivering girl and, hence, could never have been capable of hiding … which would mean the Piper lied … but, to look at him, the little knave lacked guts for more than mere impudence and mischief … but, then again, his incredible daredeviltry in the arena yesterday—!
Drask stifled a groan. Lie—lie—and counter-lie! In this blind labyrinth of confusion, how could any man find the way to truth? He growled like a needled boar. Best toss the lot of them to the kogors, and have done with the whole tangled business!
“Abdekiel!” he growled.
The shaman waddled from the throng and came across the stone pave to bow obsequiously before the dais whereon the Warlord sat before the enthroned God of Judgment.