Cold sweat started from Shangkar’s brow. Ripping his axe from its scabbard at his waist, he hurled along the curve of the crenellated, hip-high wall, boots thudding and slapping in the sudden silence. Silence? He stopped, gasping for breath, a glint of animal fear in his staring eyes.
The wind had stopped howling.
In the breathless silence, Shangkar dropped his eyes to the spreadeagled form that lay before him against the wet black stone.
It was so silent he could hear the uneven hammering of his heartbeat.
From the shadows, the white, white face of his comrade stared directly up at him with wide, unseeing eyes.
Shangkar dropped to his knees, sobbing for breath. He tore open his comrade’s fur cloak, fumbling with icy fingers over the man’s naked chest.
The face was white as clean paper. Every drop of blood had left it. And stamped upon it was an indescribably horrible expression of unhuman, mind-shattering fear. Those glazed and sightless eyes had looked upon something so awful that the mind behind those eyes had shattered into madness upon the instant.
There was no mark upon the body. No pulse thudded in the motionless naked chest. The man was dead.
He had been … frightened … to death.
Shangkar turned away into the curve of the wall and vomited—over and over again, splattering the stones with sour acid, spasm after spasm of uncontrollable nausea tearing out his guts … until at last he huddled gasping and drained of strength, gagging at the sour taste in his dry mouth, his eyes wide with horror, staring blankly out into the gray drift of fog-faces.
It was then that the whispers began… .
Far below, in the great echoing hall, Drask sat on a huge throne of black stone, wrapped in furs against the chill. Even here, deep within the central keep, you could hear the wind that never stopped, howling like a mad dog beyond the yard-thick walls of solid rock.
Before him a great fire blazed on the stone pave, sending a wavering ruddy light but little warmth to ease the bone-deep chill. In one gloved hand he held a massive goblet of the fiery purple liquor of far Valthome. In the other he restlessly rolled and tossed a superb radium-ruby. At dawn of yesterday, when they had at last broken through the doors of the mighty vaults, exposing a flood of the glittering gems, this one great ruby had rolled from the rest and struck against his boot. He had bent and picked it up, and now he mechanically played with the gorgeous jewel while he listened distractedly to Abdekiel’s slow, purring voice.
“… Shangkar is still sane. I have given him to drink of the Wine-of-Dreams, and he will pass the rest of the night in healing slumber. The shock of finding his comrade dead of terror almost shattered his mind as well… . There is some uncanny curse over this haunted world, my Lord. For the good of the men, we should leave, and leave at once!”
“We will leave when the last gem from the empty vaults has been transferred to the fleet, and not one moment before, you frightened pig!” the Warlord rasped irritably, draining his goblet at a draft and hurling the goblet from him, to clang like a golden bell against the cold pavestone somewhere in the shadows beyond the reach of the firelight.
Abdekiel’s yellow face was an impassive mask in the red, wavering light.
“My Lord—we have been on this world but two days. In that small stretch of time eleven men have been slain in fights—fights that spring up from a word, a glance, nothing more. Six more you have executed for causing these fights. Seven others have gone raving mad … they say the shadows whisper to them!”
Drask grunted moodily, tossing the gem into the air and watching it twinkle in the fire-glow.
“Hortha, who died from sheer fright last night, without a mark on his body, is not the first to die so, although we have kept this from the men. He is the fourteenth. The fourteenth to be … frightened to death … within fourteen hours! One man, you see, my Lord, for each hour we remain here … and I doubt not the shadows will continue taking their grisly toll—”
“You croak like a hoarse vulture, old toad,” Drask spat. “Do you have a woman’s soft heart beneath that fat blubber?” Abdekiel’s slitted eyes flashed venomously, but he chose not to answer the insult. “And one man has taken his own life: Diothar, who slit his throat with his own knife last night. He was no ignorant boy, no stupid peasant—he was a Chieftain and Noble of the Varkonna, your own clan, my Lord! An Elder and Advisor of your own Council! Now he is dead—by his own hand! Lord—we must leave—before—before—”
“Silence!”
Goaded to fury, Drask sprang to his feet, dashing the radium-ruby against the stone pave in his rage.
And then there was a long, long moment of utter astounded silence, as the two men stared at the smoldering jewel. A sheath of red crystal had shattered from the jewel as it struck the stone pave. And exposed now to the eye, the gem was … a great emerald, slow-pulsing fires glowing deep within it, throbbing like a living heart.
An emerald talisman of the Green Goddess.
Drask drew in a long, uneven breath. There was no doubt whatever in his mind. The gem was identical with the other, smaller talisman that had pulsed with similar witch-fires in the hilt of the dancing-girl’s dagger … that member of the Green Sisterhood who had spied upon him in distant Argion.
As they stood motionless, a calm, sweet voice filled the echoing silence … a fiercely sweet voice, chiming with cold mockery, vibrant with strange, seductive power … a voice that could never spring from a human throat … suave, metallic, singing like the music of little golden bells:
“Drask of the Varkonna, the Goddess commands! Harken and heed Her words. The Queen of Green Magic forbids that you advance one parsec further into the Orion Spur! Quit this world of Xulthoom without delay—leave forever this region of space, which is by the Goddess Niamh forever forbidden to the Star Rovers. Lead your nomad-fleets back to the bleak Rim-worlds from whence your forefathers came, and bend your savage talents to taming those cold worlds upon the edge of the Galaxy. Know that if your fleets advance hither from Xulthoom one parsec deeper into the Spur, I shall destroy you and break your fleets forever.”
The voice fell silent. From his holster, Drask tore a laser gun and leveled its searing thread of ruby fire at the speaking crystal that lay before him, pulsing against the black pave. It exploded like a thunder-clap. Oily green smoke boiled up into the shadows. Echoes boomed and gobbled away among the dim reaches of the ceiling. The stone pave hissed and seethed in a puddle of lava before the droning needle of energy.
Guards came racing into the hall, swords glinting in the firelight.
“My Lord! My Lord! What’s amiss? We heard you fire—”
Drask snapped off the laser-beam and hurled the weapon from him with an oath, striking one blank-faced guard to his knees as it thudded against his shoulder.
The Warlord sank, white-faced and shaking, into the huge throne of black stone where before him for endless ages since the coming of the first Earthmen none but the Lords of the Hooded Men had ruled.
He clutched his shaking hands together with savage fury. The tendons stood out like bronze bands on his lean arms as he strove to quell the trembling of his fingers. At last he drew a long breath, having conquered the tremor. He sagged back in the throne, gazing wearily around him. Abdekiel lay huddled on the floor, face hidden in his fat yellow hands, whimpering with terror.
“Nothing is wrong, fools. What could be wrong? Am I not sole, unquestioned Master here? Have we aught to fear on this accursed world but—shadows—voices—whispers?”