“Tonguth! Wine—wine for all. The Hero-Toast for the last of the House of Argion!” Standing, the throng drank the ancient toast, each barbarian spilling a dabble of wine to appease the gods and to sate the thirsty spirit of the newly-dead. Then they stumbled back to their places as Drask somberly resumed his seat. The feast continued, but the febrile gaity had gone out of it: men conversed quietly, or staring glumly into their cups. Tonguth, at a nearer table, gulped wine, spat sourly, and grumbled something into his bush of black beard.
Alone now on the dais, Drask saw and snapped out a command like a whipcrack.
“Speak up, black dog—what was that?”
Tonguth grimly swung his head. “I said it was an ill omen, Master. That’s all. A bad sign, death at a feast… .”
Drask snorted contemptuously.
Mumbling in his cups, Tonguth continued, “What says the Book of Jarsha about ‘a feast of knives, with blood for wine, and Death, swift-footed, follows for the second course’ … ?”
The Warlord spat.
“Priest’s mewling prattle, dog—naught else. What have we to fear?” He surveyed the great hall boldly, from his proud place. “Argion is ours, her people cowed, resistance crushed, rebellion broken. Our mighty fleets ride in high orbit, and no force within ten thousand light-years can stand against their strength. Gods—devils—what have we to fear, my brothers?”
“Calastor.”
The faint whisper of that name seemed to spring from the empty air of the great hall, and its echo rang against the silence like a stricken bell.
“Who spoke that name?” Drask roared. “Who dares name that sneaking, masked filth in my presence—who dares? Abdekiel—was it you?”
From a place far down the board a small, bland, obsequious-looking man rose, bowing, soft hands tucked in the wide sleeves of his dull gray robe. He was bald as a skull, his skin yellow as butter, features stolid, faintly smiling, impassive as a Buddha. Only the rapier-sharp glint of black eyes showed the measure of the man. Save for their cold, reptilian shrewdness he seemed a rotund, sleepy, harmless little man.
“Not my voice, dread Lord,” he purred in silky tones, bowing again. “Yet, I think, wise words to heed and remember nonetheless.”
A mutter arose among the Star Rovers, an uneasy grumble that passed through the hall like a moving shadow. In its wake faces paled, eyes swiveled to peer covertly into shadowy corners, shag-bearded barbarians furtively signed themselves with the sigils of a dozen outworld gods. The old shaman continued in his soft, sleek, colorless voice:
“Remember, Great One, no man knows Calastor, the White Wizard of Parlion, nor how he comes or goes, nor when he shall raise his unseen hand to smite and blast. As he has sworn to smite you, Great Master.”
Drask grimaced curtly. “Cease croaking, old vulture. I fear naught in this Galaxy nor the next—beast, man, or wizard. And least of all, this shadowy skulker. Any voice can speak words—for words are but air, and that is all that composes his threats! Nay, speak not of this ghostly assassin of Parlion, for I fear neither his words nor his magic.”
Tonguth spoke up, eyes glinting superstitiously. “But, Master, recall what happened before we laid siege to Scather. The voice that spoke from emptiness—the two guards found dead—frightened to death! And whose was the hand that set off the nuclear armory, demolishing our advance squadron? His! You found his note pinned to the curtains of your bed that very night—”
“True, Tonguth—as I slept in the King’s chamber, as victor and conqueror of Scather. Shadows—words—empty threats—nothing more. Only a fool would fear such—as only a fool fears magic, eh, shaman?”
The bland sorcerer bowed again. “But magic exists, dread Lord. The fool may fear, as you say, but the wise man fears as well … and takes sound precautions.”
“Now, by Thaxis, am I tempted to set my fleets over against Parlion itself. Then should we see how shadow-magic fares against hot steel and laser-beams… .”
The shaman shrugged. “Yet what man knows the place of Parlion? The planets are numberless as the sand-grains of the shore, and the World of Wizards is marked down on no chart, Lord.”
Tonguth gulped chill green wine. “Aye! Aye, Master, they say it is a shadow-world, invisible as a ghost! And Ca—the White Wizard—his ears and eyes are everywhere, his servants as numberless as the stars of the Nucleus. He has a thousand faces, thrice a thousand bodies, men say … and no man knows his face. Why, for aught we know, he might be standing among us at the very moment, viewless as the empty air, armed to strike—”
“I say—silence!”
Drask’s hard voice broke the rising mutter of his men. But … perhaps it was due to the wine they had drunk, or to Tonguth’s ill-omened quotation from the Sacred Book, or the ignorant superstition that ruled their inner lives … but there, sprawled in the noontide glory of their strength and victory, a haunting fear rode each burly Rover. It was a small thing, a mood, a tone of voice … but as they mumbled amongst themselves, their eyes edged about, glancing half-fearfully, half-defiantly into the gloom of murky shadows that suddenly seemed to press close about the flickering, wind-tossed torches … a dim wave of darkness that seemed almost to smother the light. Imagination? Illusion—a trick of wine-bleared vision?
The mood of the feast had changed. Drask snatched up a goblet and drained it at a gulp, hurling the precious crystal thing into the shadows that clustered in a wall-niche. It burst against the stone into a hundred ringing shards.
“Let me teach you fools a lesson from the pages of history,” he said loudly—perhaps too loudly, as if to drown out an inner fear. “The grand and glorious Empire of Carina was the greatest power this Galaxy has ever known. The Carina Emperors ruled with a sword of flame, hounding our forefathers to the dim-lit, scattered worlds of the Rim. Outlaws, exiles, criminals fleeing justice—the scum of the Galaxy. Yet there they stood, wrested a living from naked rock, tamed wild worlds and bent them to their will, and, with generations, forged a mighty fleet. This fleet they set up against the proud legions of the Empire and broke them down in thunder and ruin in a series of swift battles that broke through the shield of Imperial strength like hammer-blows. For a time the desperate Imperials bought their life with immense sums of tribute—for a time they hired the Rim Barbarians, as they called us, to serve as border legions patrolling the Rim—a fiction to disguise abject terror! At length we became the legions, and the degenerate, swinish Imperials depended on us—until a whim of the mighty Warlord Shandalar the Red broke the Empire and the capital world was sacked and given over to the sword. Since that day our nomad fleets have stood as the greatest fighting force in ten million ages. Tied to no world, our fleets quest where they will, and never has a single world stood against us for long!”
His fist crashed against his mailed chest. “I am Drask of the Varkonna, Warlord of a thousand Chieftains, conqueror of twenty-one planets! No force, no world, no man in all the Galaxy dares stand in my path!”
The savage words rang out bravely and boldly, but the effect was ruined by a hidden voice that whispered:
“Except for … Calastor.”
3.
TALISMAN OF GREEN MAGIC
DRASK PALED. Consternation showed on the white faces of the Star Rovers. The invisible voice that seemed to haunt the great hall rang out again, mockery and menace blending in its weird, sibilant tones.
“Calastor strikes in the hour appointed … but it is not yet. Until that grim hour dawns … farewell.”