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Black Amazon of Mars - Leigh Douglass Brackett · Black Beauty

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  Speaker 1: Part one of Black Amazon of Mars by Lee Brackett.
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  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Reading by Greg Marguerite, Part one
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: of Black Amazon of Mars by Lee Brackett. Chapter one.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Through all the long cold hours of the Norland night,
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  Speaker 1: the Martian had not moved nor spoken. At dusk of
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: the day before, Eric John Stark had brought him into
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  Speaker 1: the ruined tower and laid him down, wrapped in blankets.
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  Speaker 1: On the snow. He had built a fire of dead brush,
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  Speaker 1: and since then the two men had waited alone in
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  Speaker 1: the vast wasteland that girdles the polar cap of Mars. Now,
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  Speaker 1: just before dawn, Kamar the Martians, spoke Stark, Yes, I
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: am dying. Yes, I will not reach Coushat. No. Kamar nodded.
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  Speaker 1: He was silent again. The wind howled down from the
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: northern ice, and the broken walls rose up against it,
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  Speaker 1: brooding gigantic roofless now, but so huge and sprawling that
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: they seemed less like walls than cliffs of ebben stone.
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  Speaker 1: Stark would not have gone near them. But for Kamar.
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  Speaker 1: They were wrong somehow, with a taint of forgotten evil
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  Speaker 1: still about them. The big earth Man glanced at Kamar,
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  Speaker 1: and his face was sad. A man likes to die
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  Speaker 1: in his own place. He said abruptly, I am sorry.
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  Speaker 1: The Lord of Silence is a great personage. Kamar answered,
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  Speaker 1: he does not mind the meeting place. No, it was
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  Speaker 1: not for that I came back into the Nordlands. He
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  Speaker 1: was shaken by an agony that was not of the body,
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  Speaker 1: and I shall not reach Khrushat. Stark spoke quietly, using
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: the courtly high martian, almost as fluently as Kamar. I
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  Speaker 1: have known that there was a burden heavier than death
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  Speaker 1: upon my brother's soul. He leaned over, placing one large
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  Speaker 1: hand on the Martian's shoulder. My brother has given his
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  Speaker 1: life for mine. Therefore I will take his burden upon
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  Speaker 1: myself if I can. He did not want Kamar's burden,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: whatever it might be. But the Martian had fought beside
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: him through a long guerrilla campaign among the harried tribes
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  Speaker 1: of the Nearer Moon. He was a good man of
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  Speaker 1: his hands, and in the end had taken the bullet
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  Speaker 1: that was meant for Stark. Knowing quite well what he
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  Speaker 1: was doing. They were friends. That was why Stark had
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  Speaker 1: brought Kamar into the bleak north country, trying to reach
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  Speaker 1: the city of his birth. The martian was driven by
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  Speaker 1: some secret demon. He was afraid to die before he
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  Speaker 1: reached Gushat, and now he had no choice. I have sinned, Stark,
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  Speaker 1: I have stolen a holy thing. You are an outlander.
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  Speaker 1: You would not know of Ban Kuratch and the talisman
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  Speaker 1: that he left when he went away forever beyond the
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  Speaker 1: gates of death. Kamar flung aside the blankets and sat up,
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  Speaker 1: his voice, gaining a febrile strength. I was born and
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  Speaker 1: bred in the thieves quarter under the wall. I was
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  Speaker 1: proud of my skill, and the talisman was a challenge.
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  Speaker 1: It was a treasured thing, so treasured that hardly a
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  Speaker 1: man has touched it since the days of Ban Cruach
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  Speaker 1: who made it. And that was in the days when
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  Speaker 1: men still had the luster on them, before they forgot
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  Speaker 1: that they were gods. Guard well the gates of death,
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  Speaker 1: he said, that is the city's trust. And keep the
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  Speaker 1: talisman always, for the day may come when you will
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  Speaker 1: need its strength. Who holds Kushat holds Mars and the
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  Speaker 1: talisman will keep the city safe. I was a thief
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  Speaker 1: and proud, and I stole the talisman. His hands went
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  Speaker 1: to his girdle, a belt of worn leather with a
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  Speaker 1: boss of battered steel, but his fingers were already numb.
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  Speaker 1: Take it, Stark, Open the boss. There on the side
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  Speaker 1: where the beast's head is carved. Stark took the belt
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  Speaker 1: from Kamar and found the hidden spring. The rounded top
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  Speaker 1: of the boss came free. Inside it was something wrapped
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  Speaker 1: in a scrap of silk. I had to leave kushat.
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  Speaker 1: Kamar whispered, I could never go back, but it was
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  Speaker 1: enough to have taken that. He watched, shaken between awe
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  Speaker 1: and pride and remorse as Stark unwrapped the bit of silk.
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  Speaker 1: Stark had discounted most of Kamar's talk as superstition, but
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  Speaker 1: even so he had expected something more spectacular than the
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  Speaker 1: object he held in his palm. It was a lens,
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  Speaker 1: some four inches across, man made and made with great skill,
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  Speaker 1: but still only a bit of crystal. Turning it about,
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  Speaker 1: Stark saw that it was not a simple lens, but
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  Speaker 1: an intricate interlocking of many facets, incredibly complicated, hypnotic if
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  Speaker 1: one looked at it too long? What is its use?
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  Speaker 1: He asked of Kamar. We are as children, we have forgotten.
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  Speaker 1: But there is a legend, a belief that Van Kruach
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  Speaker 1: himself made the talisman as a sign that he would
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  Speaker 1: not forget us, and would come back when kushat Is threatened,
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  Speaker 1: back through the gates of death, to teach us again
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  Speaker 1: the power that was his. I do not understand, said Stark.
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  Speaker 1: What are the gates of death? Kamar answered, it is
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  Speaker 1: a past that it opens into the black mountains beyond Coushat.
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  Speaker 1: The city stands guard before it. Why no man remembers
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  Speaker 1: except that it is a great trust. His gaze feasted
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  Speaker 1: on the talisman, Stark said, you wish me to take
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  Speaker 1: this to Coushat. Yes? Yes, And yet Kamar looked at Stark,
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  Speaker 1: his eyes filling suddenly with tears. No, the North is
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  Speaker 1: not used to strangers. With me, you might have been safe.
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  Speaker 1: But alone, No, Stark, you have risked too much already,
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  Speaker 1: Go back out of the New Orleans while you can.
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  Speaker 1: He laid back on the blankets. Stark saw that a
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  Speaker 1: bluish pallor had come into the hollows of his cheeks.
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  Speaker 1: Kamar he said, and again, Kamar, yes, go in peace, Kamar,
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  Speaker 1: I will take the talisman to Coushat. The Martians sighed
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  Speaker 1: and smiled, and Stark glad that he had made the promise.
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  Speaker 1: The riders of Mekka are wolves, Kamar said, suddenly they
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  Speaker 1: hunt these gorges. Look out for them. I will. Stark's
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: knowledge of the geography of this part of Mars was vague, indeed,
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  Speaker 1: but he knew that the mountain valleys of Mika lay
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  Speaker 1: ahead and to the north between him and Kushat. Kamar
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  Speaker 1: had told him of these Upland warriors. He was willing
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  Speaker 1: to heed the warning. Kamar had done with talking, Stark
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: knew that he had not long to wait. The wind
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: spoke with the voice of a great organ. The moons
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  Speaker 1: had set, and it was very dark outside the tower
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: except for the white glimmering of the snow. Stark looked
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: up at the brooding walls and shivered. There was a
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  Speaker 1: smell of death already in the air. To keep from thinking,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: he bent closer to the fire, studying the lens. There
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: were scratches on the betzel, as though it had been
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  Speaker 1: held some time in a clamp or setting, like a
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  Speaker 1: jewel an ornament, probably worn as a badge of rank
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  Speaker 1: strange ornament for a Barbarian king in the dawn of Mars.
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  Speaker 1: The firelight made tiny, dancing sparks in the endless inner facets.
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  Speaker 1: Quite suddenly he had a curious feeling that the thing
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  Speaker 1: was alive. A pang of primitive and unreasoning fear shot
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  Speaker 1: through him, and he fought it down. His vision was
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  Speaker 1: beginning to blur, and he shut his eyes, and in
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  Speaker 1: the darkness it seemed to him that he could see
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  Speaker 1: and hear. He started up, shaken now with an eerie terror,
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  Speaker 1: and raised his hand to hurl the talisman away, But
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: the part of him that had learned with much pain
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  Speaker 1: and effort to be civilized made him stop and think.
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  Speaker 1: He sat down again, an instrument of hypnosis possibly, And
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  Speaker 1: yet that fleeting touch of sight and sound had not
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  Speaker 1: been his own, out of his own memories. Was tempted now,
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  Speaker 1: fascinated like a child that plays with fire. The talisman
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  Speaker 1: had been worn somehow, where on the breast, on the brow.
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  Speaker 1: He tried the first with no result. Then he touched
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  Speaker 1: the flat surface of the lens to his forehead. The
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  Speaker 1: great tower of stone rose up, monstrous to the sky.
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  Speaker 1: It was whole, and there were pallid lights within that
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  Speaker 1: stirred and flickered, and it was crowned with a shimmering darkness.
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  Speaker 1: He lay outside the tower on his belly, and he
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  Speaker 1: was filled with fear and a great anger, and a
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  Speaker 1: loathing such as turns the bones to water. There was
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  Speaker 1: no snow. There was ice everywhere, rising to half the
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  Speaker 1: tower's height, sheathing the ground. Ice, cold and clear and
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  Speaker 1: beautiful and deadly. He moved, He glided, snakelike, with infinite caution,
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  Speaker 1: over the smooth surface. The tower was gone, and far
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  Speaker 1: below him was a city. He saw the temples and
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  Speaker 1: the palaces, the glittering, lovely city beneath him, and the ice,
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  Speaker 1: blurred and fairylike and strange, a dream half glimpsed through crystal.
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  Speaker 1: He saw the ones that lived there, moving slowly through
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  Speaker 1: the streets. He could not see them clearly, only the
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  Speaker 1: vague shining of their bodies, and he was glad. He
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  Speaker 1: hated them with a hatred that conquered even his fear,
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  Speaker 1: which was great. Indeed, he was not Eric John Stark.
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  Speaker 1: He was ban Cruach. The tower and the city vanished,
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  Speaker 1: swept away on a reeling tide. He stood beneath a
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  Speaker 1: scrap of black rock notched with a single pass. The
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  Speaker 1: cliffs hung over him, leaning out their vast bulk as
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  Speaker 1: though to crush him, and the narrow mouth of the
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  Speaker 1: pass was full of evil laughter. Where the wind went by.
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  Speaker 1: He began to walk forward into the pass. He was
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  Speaker 1: quite alone. The light was dim and strange. At the
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  Speaker 1: bottom of that cleft. Little vals of mist crept and
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  Speaker 1: clung between the ice and the rock thickened became more
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  Speaker 1: dense as he went farther and farther into the pass.
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  Speaker 1: He could not see, and the wind spoke with many tongues,
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  Speaker 1: piping in the crevices of the cliffs. All at once
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  Speaker 1: there was a shadow in the mist before him, a dim,
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  Speaker 1: gigantic shape that moved toward him, and he knew that
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  Speaker 1: he looked at death. He cried out. It was Stark
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  Speaker 1: who yelled in blind atavistic fear, and the echo of
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  Speaker 1: his own cry brought him up standing, shaking in every limb.
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  Speaker 1: He had dropped the talisman. It lay gleaming in the
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  Speaker 1: snow at his feet, and the alien memories were gone,
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  Speaker 1: and Kamar was dead. After a time, he crouched down
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  Speaker 1: breathing harshly. He did not want to touch the lens again.
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  Speaker 1: The part of him that had learned to fear strange
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  Speaker 1: gods and evil spirits. With every step he took, the
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  Speaker 1: primitive aboriginal that lay so close under the surface of
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  Speaker 1: his mind warned him to leave it, to run away,
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  Speaker 1: to desert this place of death and ruined stone. He
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  Speaker 1: forced himself to take it up. He did not look
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  Speaker 1: at it. He wrapped it in the bit of silk
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  Speaker 1: and replaced it inside the iron boss and clasped the
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  Speaker 1: belt around his waist. Then he found the small flask
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  Speaker 1: that lay with his gear beside the fire, and took
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  Speaker 1: a long pole and tried to think rationally of the
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  Speaker 1: thing that had happened. Memories not his own, but the
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  Speaker 1: memories of Bancrouach a million years ago in the morning
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  Speaker 1: of a world, memories of hate, a secret war against
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  Speaker 1: unhuman beings that dwelt in crystal cities, cut in the
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  Speaker 1: living ice, and used these ruined towers for some dark
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  Speaker 1: purpose of their own. Was that the meaning of the talisman,
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  Speaker 1: the power that lay within it, had Bancrouache, by some
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  Speaker 1: elder and forgotten science, imprisoned the echoes of his own
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  Speaker 1: mind in the crystal, why perhaps as a warning, as
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  Speaker 1: a reminder of ageless alien danger beyond the gates of death. Suddenly,
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  Speaker 1: one of the beasts tethered outside the ruined tower started
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  Speaker 1: up from its sleep with a hissing snarl. Instantly Stark
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  Speaker 1: became motionless. They came silently on their padded feet, the
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  Speaker 1: rangy mountain brutes, moving daintily through the sprawling ruin. Their riders, too,
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  Speaker 1: were silent, tall men with fierce eyes and russet hair,
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  Speaker 1: wearing leather coats and carrying each a long, straight spear.
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  Speaker 1: There were a score of them around the tower in
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  Speaker 1: the windy gloom. Stark did not, rather to draw his gun.
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  Speaker 1: He had learned very young the difference between courage and idiocy.
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  Speaker 1: He walked out toward them, slowly lest one of them
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  Speaker 1: be startled into spearing him, yet not slowly enough to
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  Speaker 1: denote fear, and held up his right hand and gave
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  Speaker 1: them greeting. They did not answer him. They sat their
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  Speaker 1: restive mounts and stared at him, and Stark knew that
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  Speaker 1: Kamar had spoken the truth. These were the riders of Maka,
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  Speaker 1: and they were wolves. Chapter two. Stark waited until they
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  Speaker 1: should tire of their own silence. Finally, one demanded, of
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  Speaker 1: what country are you? He answered, I am called Nachaka,
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  Speaker 1: the man without a tribe. It was the name they
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  Speaker 1: had given him, the half human aboriginals who had raised
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: him in the blaze and thunder and bitter frosts of Mercury.
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  Speaker 1: A stranger said the leader and smiled. He pointed at
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  Speaker 1: the dead Kamar and asked, did you slay him? He
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  Speaker 1: was my friend, said Stark. I was bringing him home
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  Speaker 1: to die. Two riders dismounted to inspect the body. One
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  Speaker 1: called up to the leader he was from Kushat. If
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  Speaker 1: I know the breed thword and he has not been robbed,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: he proceeded to take care of that detail himself. A
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: stranger repeated the leader thword bound for Kushat with a
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  Speaker 1: man of Kushat. Well, I think you will come with us,
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  Speaker 1: stranger Stark shrugged, and with the long spears pricking him,
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  Speaker 1: he did not resist. When the tall thword plundered him
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  Speaker 1: of all he owned, except his clothes and Kamar's belt,
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  Speaker 1: which was not worth the stealing his gun, Thord flung
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: contemptuously away. One of the men brought Stark's beast and
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  Speaker 1: Kamar's from where they were tethered, and the earthband mounted
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: as usual over the violent protest of the creature, which
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: did not like the smell of him, they moved out
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: from under the shelter of the walls into the full
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: fury of the wind. For the rest of that night,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: and through the next day and the night that followed it,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: they rode eastward, stopping only to rest the beasts and
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: chew on their of jerked meat. To Stark, riding a prisoner,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: it came with full force that this was the North Country,
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  Speaker 1: half a world away from the mars of space. Ships
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  Speaker 1: and commerce and visitors from other planets. The future had
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: never touched these wild mountains and barren plains. The past
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: held pride enough. To the north, the horizon showed a
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: strange and ghostly glimmer, where the barrier wall of the
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: polar Pack reared up gigantic against the sky. The wind
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  Speaker 1: blew down from the ice through the mountain gorges, across
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: the plains, never ceasing, and here and there the cryptic
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: towers rose, broken monoliths of stone. Stark remembered the vision
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: of the talisman. The huge structure crowned with eerie darkness.
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  Speaker 1: He looked upon the ruins with loathing and curiosity. The
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: man of Maca could tell him nothing. Thorde did not
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  Speaker 1: tell Stark where they were taking him, and Stark did
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  Speaker 1: not ask. It would have been an admission of fear.
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  Speaker 1: In mid afternoon of the second day, they came to
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  Speaker 1: a lip of rock where the snow was swept clean,
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  Speaker 1: and below it was a sheer drop into a narrow valley.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Looking down, Stark saw that on the floor of the valley,
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  Speaker 1: up and down as far as he could see, were
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: men and beasts, and shelters of hide and brush, and
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: fires burning by the hundreds, by the several thousand. They
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: camped under the cliffs, and their voices rose up on
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: the thin air in a vast, deep murmur that was
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: deafening after the silence of the plains. A war party
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: gathered now before the thaw. Stark smiled. He became curious
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  Speaker 1: to meet the leader of this army. They found their
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: way single file along a winding track that dropped down
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  Speaker 1: the cliff face. The wind stopped abruptly, cut off by
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: the valley walls. They came in among the shelters of
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: the camp. Here the snow was churned and oiled and
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: melted to slush by the fires. There were no women
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: in the camp, no sign of the usual cheerful rabble
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: that follows a barbarian army. There were only men, hill
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: men and warriors, all tough handed killers with no thought
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: but battle. They came out of their holes to shout
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: at Thord and his men and stare at the stranger.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Thord was flushed and jovial with importance. I have no
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: time for you, he shouted back. I go to speak
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: with the lord's Ciarron. Stark rode impassively, a dark giant
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: with a face of stone. From time to time he
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: made his beast curvette and laughed at himself inwardly for
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: doing it. They came at length to a shelter, larger
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: than the others, but built exactly the same and no
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: more comfortable. A spear was thrust into the snow beside
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: the entrance, and from it hung a black pennant with
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: a single bar of silver across it, like lightning in
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: a night sky. Beside it was a shield with the
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: same device. There were no guards. Thord dismounted, bidding Stark
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: to do the same. He hammered on the shield with
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: the hilt of his sword, announcing himself Lord Ciaran. It
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: is Thord with a captive. A voice toneless and strangely muffled,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: spoke from within entered Thord. Thord pushed aside the hide
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: curtain and went in with stark at his heels. The
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: dim daylight did not penetrate the interior. Cressets burned, giving
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: off a flickering brilliance and a smell of strong oil.
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  Speaker 1: The floor of packed snow was carpeted with furs much worn. Otherwise,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: there was no adornment, and no furniture, but a chair
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: and a table, both dark with age and use, and
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: a pallette of skins in one shadowy corner, with what
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: seemed to be a heap of rags upon it. The
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: chair sat a man. He seemed very tall in the
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: shaking light of the cressets, from neck to thigh. His
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: lean body was cased in black link mail, and under
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: that a tunic of leather dyed black. Across his knees.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: He held a sable axe, a great thing made for
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: the shearing of skulls, and his hands lay upon it gently,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: as though it were a toy. He loved. His head
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: and face were covered by a thing that Stark had
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: seen before, only in very old paintings, the ancient war
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: mask of the Inland Kings of Mars. Wrought of black
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: and gleaming steel, it presented an unhuman visage of slitted
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: eye holes and a barred slot for breathing. Behind it
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: sprang out in a thin, soaring sweep, like a dark
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: wing edge on in flight. The intent, expressionless scrutiny of
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: that mask was bent not upon Thord, but upon Eric
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: John Stark. The hollow voice spoke again from behind the mask. Well,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: we were hunting in the gorgeous to the south, said Thord.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: We saw a fire. He told the story of how
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: they had found the stranger in the body of the
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: man from Couchhat Cuchhat, said Lord Sierrain softly. Ah, and
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: why stranger were you going to Coushat? My name is Stark,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: Eric John Stark, earthman out of Mercury. He was tired
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: of being called stranger. Quite suddenly, he was tired of
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: the whole business. Why should I not go to Coushat?
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Is it against some law that a man may not
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: go there in peace without being hounded all over the
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: new orlands. And why do the men of Maca make
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: it their business? They have nothing to do with the city.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Thord held his breath, watching with delighted anticipation the hands
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: of the man in armor caressed the axe. They were
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: slender hands, smooth and sing small hands. It seemed for
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: such a weapon. We make what we will our business.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Eric John Stark, he spoke with a peculiar gentleness. I
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: have asked you, why were you going to Coushat? Because
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Stark answered with equal restraint, my comrade wanted to go
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: home to die. It seems a long hard journey just
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: for dying. The black helm bent forward in an attitude
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: of thought. Only the condemned or banished leave their cities
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: or their clans. Why did your comrade flee Coushat? A
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: voice spoke suddenly from out of the heap of rags
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: that lay on the pallet in the shadows of the corner,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: A man's voice, deep and husky, with the harsh quaver
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: of age or madness in it. Three men, beside myself,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: have fled Coushat over the years that matter. One died
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: in the spring floods, one was caught in the moving
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: ice of winter. One lived a thief named Kamar, who
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: stole a certain talisman. Stark said, my comrade was called Greshy.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: The leather belt weighed heavily about him, and the iron
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: boss seemed hot against his belly. He was beginning now
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: to be afraid. The Lord Siren spoke, ignoring Stark, it
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: was the sacred talisman of Coushat. Without it, the city
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: is like a man without a soul. As the Veil
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: of tanit was to Carthage, Stark thought and reflected on
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: the fate of that city after the veil was stolen.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: The nobles were afraid of their own people. The man
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: in armor said, they did not dare to tell that
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: it was gone, But we know, and said Stark, you
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: will attack Coushat before the thaw, when they least expect you.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: You have a sharp mind, Stranger, yes, but the great
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: wall will be hard to carry. Even so if I
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: came bearing in my hands the talisman of Bangurage, he
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: did not finish, but turned instead to Thord. When you
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: plundered the dead man's body, what did you find? Nothing? Lord,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: A few coins of a knife, hardly worth the taking.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: And you, Eric John Stark, what did you take from
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: the body with perfect truth. He answered nothing, Thord said,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: the Lord Seren search him. Thord came smiling up to
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Stark and ripped his jacket open with uncanny swift. As
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: the earthmen moved, the edge of one broad hand took
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Thord under the ear, and before the man's knees had
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: time to sag, Stark had caught his arm. He turned,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: crouching forward, and pitched Thord headlong through the door flap.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: He straightened and turned again. His eyes held a feral glint.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: The man has robbed me once, he said, it is enough.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: He heard Thord's men coming. Three of them tried to
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: jam through the entrance at once, and he sprang at them.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: He made no sound. His fists did the talking for him,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: and then his feet as he kicked the stunned barbarians
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: back upon their leader. Now he said to the Lord Syrian,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: will we talk as men? The man in armor laughed
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: a sound of pure enjoyment. It seemed that the gaze
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: behind the mask studied stark savage face, and then lifted
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: to greet the sullen Thord, who came back into the shelter.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: His cheeks flushed. Crimson with rage go said the Lord Syen,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: the stranger, and I will talk. But Lord, he protested,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: glaring at Stark, it is not safe. My dark mistress
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: looks after my safety, said Syrien, stroking the axe across
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: his knees. Go thord went the man and armor was silent.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Then the blind mask turned to Stark, who met that
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: eyeless gaze and was silent also. And the bundle of
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: rags in the shadows straightened slowly and became a tall
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: old man with rusty hair and beard, through which peered
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: craggy juts of bone and two bright small points of fire,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: as though some wicked flame burned within them. He shuffled
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: over and crouched at the feet of the Lord Syran,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: watching the earthmen, and the man in armor leaned forward.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: I will tell you something, Eric John Stark. I am
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: a bastard, but I come of the blood of kings.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: My name and rank I must make with my own hands,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: but I will set them high, and my name will
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: ring in the norlands. I will take Coushat who holds
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Gushat holds Mars, and the power and the riches that
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: lie beyond the gates of death. I have seen them,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: said the old man, and his eye eyes blazed. I
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: have seen bon Cruach, the mighty. I have seen the
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: temples and the palaces glitter in the ice. I have
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: seen them, the shining ones. Oh, I have seen them,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: the beautiful, hideous ones. He glanced sidelong at Stark. Very cunning.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: That is why Otar is mad, stranger. He has seen
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: a chill swept Stark, he too had seen, not with
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: his own eyes, but with the mind and memories of
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: ban Cruach of a million years ago. Then it had
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: been no illusion, the fantastic vision opened to him by
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: the talisman now hidden in his belt. If this old
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: madman had seen what beings lurk beyond the gates of death,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: I do not know, said Syrian. But my dark mistress
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: will test their strength, and I think my red wolves
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: will hunt them down once they get a smell of plunder.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: The beautiful, terrible ones, whispered O Tar, and oh, the
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: temples and the palaces and the great towers of Stone.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Ride with me, Stark, said the Lord Syrian. Abruptly, yield
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: up the talisman and be the shield at my back.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: I have offered no other man that honor. Stark asked slowly,
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Why do you choose me. We are of one blood, Stark,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: though we be strangers. The earth Man's cold eyes narrowed.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: What would your red wolves say to that? And what
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: would O Tar say? Look at him, already stiff with
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: jealousy and fear, lest I answer, yes, I do not
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: think you would be afraid of either of them. On
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: the contrary, said Stark, I am a prudent man. He paused,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: there is one other thing. I will bargain with no
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: man until I have looked into his eyes. Take off
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: your helm, Syrin, and then perhaps we will talk. O
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: Tar's breath made up snakelike hissing between his toothless gums,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: and the hands of the Lord Syrian tightened on the
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: haft of the axe. No, he whispered, that I can
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: never do. O Tar rose to his feet, and for
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: the first time Stark felt the full strength that lay
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: in this strange old man. Would you look upon the
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: face of destruction, he thundered, Do you ask for death?
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Do you think a thing is hidden behind a mask
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: of steel without a reason that you demand to see it?
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: He turned, my lord, he said, by tomorrow the last
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: of the clans will have joined us. After that we
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: must march. Give this earthman to Thord for the time
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: that remains, and you will have the talisman. The blank
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: blind mask was unmoving, turned towards stark, and the earthman
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: thought that from behind it it came a faint sound
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: that might have been a sigh. Then Thword cried the
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: Lord Syrian, and lifted up the axe. Chapter three. The
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: flames leaped high from the fire in the windless gorge.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Men sat around it in a great circle, the wild
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: riders out of the mountain valleys of Maca. They sat
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: with the curbed and shivering eagerness of wolves, around a
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: dying quarry. Now and again, their white teeth showed in
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: a kind of silent laughter, and their eyes watched. He
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: is strong, they whispered, one to the other. He will
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: live the night out surely. On an outcrop of rock
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: sat the Lord Syen, wrapped in a black cloak, holding
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: the great axe in the crook of his arm. Beside
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: him o tar huddled in the snow. Close by. The
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: long spears had been driven deep and lashed together to
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: make a scaffolding, and upon this frame was hung a man,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: a big man, iron muscled and very The bulk of
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: his shoulders, filling the space between the bending shafts. Eric
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: John Stark of Earth, out of mercury. He had already
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: been scourged without mercy. He sagged of his own weight
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: between the spears, breathing in harsh sobs, and the trampled
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: snow around him was spotted red. Thord was wielding the lash.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: He had stripped off his own coat, and his body
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: glistened with sweat. In spite of the cold. He cut
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: his victim with great care, making the long lash sing
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: and crack. He was proud of his skill. Stark did
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: not cry out presently. Thord stepped back, panting and looked
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: at the Lord Syrian, and the black Helm nodded. Thord
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: dropped the whip. He went up to the big dark
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: man and lifted his head by the hair. Stark, he said,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: and shook the head roughly. Stranger eyes opened and stared
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: at him, and Thord god not repress a slight shiver.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: It seemed that the pain and indignity had brought some
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: evil magic on this man he had ridden with, And
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: thought he knew he had seen exactly the same gaze
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: in a big snow cat caught in a trap, and
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: he felt suddenly that it was not a man he
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: spoke to, but a predatory beast. Stark. He said, where
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: is the talisman of ban Cruach? The earth man did
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: not answer. Thorde laughed. He glanced up at the sky,
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: where the moons rode low and swift. The night is
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: only half gone? Do you think you can last it out?
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: The cold, cruel, patient eyes watched Thord. There was no reply.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: Some quality of pride in that gaze angered the barbarian.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: It seemed to mock him, who was so sure of
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: his ability to loosen a reluctant tongue. You think I
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: cannot make you talk, don't you? You don't know me, stranger.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: You don't know Thord, who can make the rocks speak
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: out if he will. He reached out with his free
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: hand and struck Stark across the face. It seemed impossible
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: that anything so still could move so quickly. Yet there
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: was an ugly flash of teeth, and Thord's wrist was
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: caught above the thumb joint. He bellowed, and the iron
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: jaws closed down, worrying the bone. Quite suddenly, Thorde screamed,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: not for pain but for panic, and the rows of
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: watching men swayed forward, and even the Lord's Syrian rose up. Startled.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Hark ran the whispering around the fire. Hark, how he growls.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: Thord had let go of Stark's hair and was beating
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: him about the head with his clenched fist. His face
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: was white where wolf. He screamed, let me go, beast thing,
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: let me go. But the dark man clung to Thord's wrist,
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: snarling and did not hear. After a bit there came
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: the dull crack of bone. Stark opened his jaws, Thord
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: ceased to strike him. He backed off, slowly, staring at
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: the torn flesh. Stark had sunk down to the length
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: of his arms. With his left hand, Thord drew his knife.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: The Lord Syrian stepped forward. Wait, Thord, it is a
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: thing of evil, whispered the Barbarian warlock werewolf beast. He
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: sprang at Stark. The man in armor moved very swiftly,
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: and the great axe went whirling through the air. It
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: caught Thord squarely, where the cords of his neck ran
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: into the shoulder, caught and shore on through. There was
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: a silence in the valley. The Lord Syrian walked slowly
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: across the trampled snow and took up his axe again.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: I will be obeyed, he said, and I will not
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: stand for fear, not of God, man nor devil towards Stark.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: Cut him down, and see that he does not die.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: He strode away, and Otar began to laugh from a
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: vast distant Stark heard that shrill, wild laughter. His mouth
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: was full of blood, and he was mad with a
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: cold fury. A cunning that was purely animal guided his movements.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: Then his head fell forward, and his body hung inert
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: against the thongs. He might almost have been dead. A
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: knot of men came toward him. He listened to them.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: They were hesitant and afraid. Then as he did not move,
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: they plucked up carriage and came closer, and one prodded
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: him gently with the point of his spear. Prick him well,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: said another. Let us be sure. The sharp point bit
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: a little deeper. A few drops of blood welled out
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: and joined these small red streams that ran from the
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: wheels of the lash. Stark did not stir. The spearmen grunted.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: He's safe enough now. Stark felt the knife blades working
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: at the thongs. He waited the rawhide snapped, and he
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: was free. He did not fall. He would not have
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: fallen then if he had taken a death wound. He
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: gathered his legs under him and sprang. He picked up
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: the spearmen in that first rush and flung him into
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: the fire. Then he began to run towards the place
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: where the scaly mounts were herded, leaving a trail of
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: blood behind him. On the snow, a man loomed up
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: in front of him. He saw the shadow of a
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: spear and swerved and caught the haft in his two hands.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: He wrenched it free and struck down with the butt
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: of it, and went on behind him. He heard voices
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: shouting and the beginning of turmoil. The Lord Seiron turned
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: and came back, striding fast. There were men before Stark,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: now many men, the circle of watchers breaking up because
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: there had been nothing more to watch. He gripped the
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: long spear. It was a good weapon, better than the
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: flint tipped stick with which the boy Natchaka had hunted
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: the giant lizard of the rocks. His body curved into
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: a half crouch. He voiced one cry, the challenging scream
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: of a predatory killer, and went in among the men
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: he did slaughter with that spear. They were not expecting attack.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: They were not expecting anything. Stark had sprung to life
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: too quickly, and they were afraid of him. He could
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: smell the fear on them, fear not of a man
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: like themselves, but of a creature less and more than man.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: He killed, and was happy they fell away from him.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: The wild riders of Maka, they were sure now that
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: he was a demon. He raged among them with the
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: bright spear, and they heard again that sound that should
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: have not come from a human throat, and their superstitious
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: terror rose and sent them scrambling out of his path,
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: trampling on each other in childish panic. He broke through,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: and now there was nothing between him and escape but
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: two mounted men who guarded the herd. Being mounted, they
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: had more carriage. They felt that even a warlock could
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: not stand against their charge. They came at him as
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: he ran, the padded feet of their beasts, making a
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: muffled drumming in the snow. Without breaking stride, Stark hurled
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: his spear. It drove through one man's body and tumbled
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: him off, so that he fell under his comrade's mount
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: and fouled its legs. It staggered and reared up, hissing,
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: and Stark fled on. Once he glanced over his shoulder
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: through the milling, shouting crowd of men, he glimpsed a
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: dark mailed figure with a winged mask, going through the
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: rock with a loping stride and bearing a sable axe
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: raised high for the throwing. Stark was close to the
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: herd now, and they caught his scent. The Nordland brutes
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: had never liked the smell of him, and now the
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: re of blood upon him was enough in itself to
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: set them wild. They began to hiss and snarl, uneasily,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: rubbing their reptilian flanks together as they wheeled around, staring
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: at him with lambent eyes. He rushed them before they
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: could quite decide to break. He was quick enough to
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: catch one by the fleshy comb that served it for
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: a Forelock held it with savage indifference to its squealing,
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: and leaped to its back. Then he let it bold,
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: and as he rode it, he yelled a shrill, brute
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: cry that urged the creatures on to panic. The herd broke,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: stampeding outward from its center like a bursting shell. Stark
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: was in the forefront, clinging low to the scaly neck.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: He saw the men of Maca scattered and churned and
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: trampled into the snow by the flying pads in and
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: out of the shelters, kicking the brush walls down, lifting
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: up their harsh reptilian voices. They went racketing through the camp,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: leaving behind them wreckage as of a storm, and Stark
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: went with them. He snatched a cloak from off the
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: shoulders of some petty chieftain as he went by, and then,
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: twisting cruelly on the fleshy comb, beating with his fist
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: at the creature's head, he got his mount turned and
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: the way he wanted it to go. Down the valley.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: He caught one last glimpse of the Lord's Syrian fighting
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: to hold one of the creatures long enough to mount,
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: and then a dozen striving bodies surged around him, and
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: Stark was gone. The beast did not slacken pace. It
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: was as though it thought it could outrun the alien
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: body thing that clung to its back. The last fringes
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: of the camp shot by and vanished in the gloom
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: and the clean snow of the lower valley lay open
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: before it. The creature laid its belly to the ground
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: and went the white spray spurting from its heels. Stark
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: hung on. His strength was gone, now run out. Suddenly
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: with the battle madness, he became conscious now that he
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: was sick and bleeding, that his body was one cruel pain.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: In that moment, more than in the hours that had
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: gone before, he hated the black leader of the clans
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: of Maca. That flight down the valley became a sort
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: of ugly dream. Stark was aware of rock walls reeling past,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: and then they seemed to widen away, and the wind
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: came out of nowhere like the stroke of a great hammer,
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: and he was on the open moors again. The beast
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: began to falter and slow down. Presently it stopped. Stark
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: scooped up snow to rub on his wounds. He came
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: near to fainting, but the bleeding stopped, and after that
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: the pain was numbed to a dull ache. He wrapped
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: the cloak around him and urged the beast to go
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: on gently, this time patiently, and after it had breathed,
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: it obeyed him, settling into the shuffling pace. It could
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: keep up for hours. He was three days on the moors.
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: Part of the time he rode in a sort of stupor,
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: and part of the time he was feverishly alert, watching
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: the skyline. Frequently he took the shapes of thrusting rocks
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: for riders and found what cover he could until he
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: was sure they did not move. He was afraid to dismount,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: for the beast had no bridle. When it halted to rest,
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: he remained upon its back, shaking, his brow beaded with sweat.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: The wind scoured his tracks clean as soon as he
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: made them. Twice in the distance he did see riders,
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: and one of those times he burrowed into a tall
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: drift and stayed there for several hours. The ruined towers
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: marched with him across the bitter land, lonely giants fifty
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: miles apart. He did not go near them. He knew
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: that he wandered a good bit, but he could not
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: help it, and it was probably his salvation. In those
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: tortured bad lands, riven by ages of frost and flood,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: one might follow a man on a straight track between
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: two points, but to find a single rider lost in
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: that wilderness was a matter of sheer, luck and the
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: odds were with Stark. One evening, at sunset, he came
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: out upon a plain that sloped upward to a black
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: and towering scarp notched with a single pass. The light
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: was level and blood red glittering on the frosty rock,
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: so that it seemed the throat of the pass was
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: aflame with evil fires. To Stark's mind, essentially primitive and
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: stripped now of all of its acquired reason, that narrow
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: cleft appeared as the doorway to the dwelling place of
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: demons as horrible as the fabled creatures that roamed the
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: dark side of his native world. He looked long at
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: the gates of death, and a dark memory crept into
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: his brain, memory of that nightmare experience when the talisman
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: had made him seem to walk into that frightful pass,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: not as Stark, but as ban Cruage. He remembered O
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: Tar's words, I have seen Bancrue watch the mighty. Was
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: he still there beyond those darkling gates, fighting his unimagined war? Alone?
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: Again in memory, Stark heard the evil piping of the
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: wind again. The shadow of a dim and terrible shape
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: loomed up before him. He forced remembrance of that vision
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: from his mind by a great effort. He could not
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: turn back. Now there was no place to go. His
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: weary beast plodded on. And now Stark saw as in
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: a dream, that a great walled city stood guard before
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: that awful gate. He watched the city glide toward him
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: through a crimson haze, and fancied he could see the
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: ages clustered like birds around the towers. He had reached
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: Kushat with the talisman of Bancroach still strapped in the
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: blood stained belt around his waist and of Part one
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: of Black Amazon of Mars by Lee Bracket. Part two
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: of Black Amazon of Mars by Lee Bracket. This LibriVox
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Reading by Greg Marguerite,
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: Part two of Black Amazon of Mars by Lee Bracket,
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: Chapter four. He stood in a large square, lined about
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: with huckster's stalls and the booths of wine cellars. Beyond
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: where buildings streets a city. Stark got a blurred impression
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: of a grand and brooding darkness, bulking huge against the mountains,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: as bleak and p as they and quite as ancient,
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: with many ruins and deserted quarters. He was not sure
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: how he had come here, but he was standing on
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: his own feet, and some one was pouring sour wine
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: into his mouth. He drank it greedily. There were people
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: around him, jostling, chattering, demanding answers to their questions. A
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: girl's voice said, sharply, let him be, can't you see
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: he's hurt? Stark looked down. She was slim and ragged,
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: with black hair and large eyes yellow as a cat's.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: She held a leather bottle in her hands. She smiled
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: at him and said, I'm Thanis. Will you drink more wine?
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: I will, said Stark, and did, and then said thank you. Thenis?
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: He put his hand on her shoulder to steady himself.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: It was a supple shoulder, surprisingly strong. He liked the
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: feel of it. The crowd was still churning around him,
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: growing larger, and now he heard the tramp of military feet.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: A small detachment of men in light armor pushed their
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: way through. A very young officer, whose breastplate hurt the
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: eye with brightness, demanded to be told at once who
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: Stark was and why he had come there. No one
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: crosses the moors in winter, he said, as though that
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: in itself were a sign of evil intent. The clans
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: of Mecca are crossing them. Stark answered, an army to
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: take coushat one two days behind me. The crowd picked
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: that up, excited voices, tossed it back and forth, and
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: clamored for more news. Stark spoke to the officer, I
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: will see your captain at once. You'll see the inside
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: of a prison more likely, snapped the young man. What's
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: this nonsense about the clans of Mecca, Stark regarded him.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: He looked so long and so curiously that the crowd
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: began to snicker, and the officer's beardless face flushed pink
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: to the ears. I have fought in many wars, said Stark, gently,
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: and long ago I learned to listen when someone came
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: to warn me of attack. Better take him to the captain,
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: lug cried, thanis it's our skins too, you know if
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: there is war. The crowd began to shout. They were
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: all poor folk, wrapped in threadbare cloaks or tattered leather.
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: They had no love for the guards, and whether there
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: was war or not, their winter had been long and dull,
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: and they were going to make the most of this excitement.
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: Take him lug. Let him warn the nobles. Let them
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: think how they'll defend Cushat and the gates of death
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: now that the talisman is gone. That's a lie, Luke shouted.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: And you know the penalty for telling it. Hold your
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: tongues or I'll have you all whipped. He gestured angrily
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: at Stark. See if he's armed. One of the soldiers
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: stepped forward, but Stark was quicker. He slipped the thong
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: and let the cloak fall, baring his upper body. The
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: Klansmen have already taken everything I owned, he said, but
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: they gave me something in return. The crowd stared at
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: the half healed stripes that scarred him, and there was
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: a drawing in of breath. The soldier picked up the
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: cloak and laid it over the earth man's shoulders, and
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: Luke said, suddenly, come. Then Stark's fingers tightened on thenis's shoulder.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: Come with me, little one, he whispered, otherwise I must crawl.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: She smiled at him, and came. The crowd followed. The
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: captain of the guards was a fleshy man, with a
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: smell of wine about him and a face already crumbling apart,
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: though his hair was not yet gray. He sat in
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: a squat tower above the square, and he observed Stark
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: with no particular interest. You had something to tell, said Luke.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: Tell it, Stark told them, leaving out all mention of
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: come and the talisman. This was neither the time nor
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: the man to hear that story. The captain listened to
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: all he had to say about the gathering of the
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: clans of Mecca, and then sat studying him with a
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: bleary shrewdness. You have proof of all this. These stripes,
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: their leader, Syrian, ordered them laid on himself. The captain
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: sighed and leaned back. Any wandering band of hunters could
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: have scourged you, he said, a nameless vagabond from the
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: gods know where, and a lawless wanted that if, by
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: many judge of men, you probably deserved it. He reached
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: for wine and smiled, Look, you stranger. In the Nordlands,
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: no one makes war in the winter, and no one
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: ever heard of Syrian. If you hope for a reward
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: from the city, you overshot badly. The Lord Syrian, said Stark, grimly,
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: controlling his anger, will be battering at your gate within
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: two days, and you will hear of him then perhaps
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: you can wait for him in a cell, and you
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: can leave Coushat with the first caravan after the thaw.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: We have enough rabble here without taking in more thanis
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: caught stark by the cloak and held him back. Sir,
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: she said, as though it were an unclean word. I
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: will vouch for the stranger. The captain glanced at her. You, Sir,
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: I am a free citizen of Coushat. According to law,
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: I may vouch for him. If you, scum of the
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: thieves quarter, would practice the law as well as you
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: prate it, we would have less trouble, growled the captain.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: Very well, take the creature if you want him. I
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: don't suppose you've anything to lose, lu laughed, Name and
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: dwelling place, said the captain, and wrote them down. Remember
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: he is not to leave the quarter thanis nodded. Come,
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: she said to start. He did not move, and she
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: looked up at him. He was staring at the captain.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: His beard had grown in these last days, and his
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: face was still scarred by Thord's blows and made wolfish
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: with pain and fever. And now out of this evil mask,
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: his eyes were peering with a chill and terrible intensity
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: at the soft bellied man who sat and mocked him.
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: Thanis laid her hand on his rough cheek. Come, she said, come,
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: and rest gently. She turned his head. He blinked and swayed,
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: and she took him round the waist and led him,
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: unprotesting to the door. There she paused, looking back, sir,
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: she said, very meekly, noose of this attack is being
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: shouted through the quarter. Now. If it should come, and
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: it were known that you had the warning and did
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: not pass it on, she made an expressive gesture and
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: went out. Duugh glanced uneasily at the captain. She's right, sir,
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: If by chance the man did tell the truth, The
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: captain swore rot the rogue's tail and yed. He scowled indecisively,
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: and then reached for parchment. After all, it's a simple thing.
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: Write it up, pass it on, and let the nobles
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: do the worrying. His pen began to scratch. Thanis took
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: Stark by steep and narrow ways, darkling now in the afterglow,
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: where the city climbed and fell again over the uneven rock,
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: Stark was aware of the heavy smells of spices and
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: unfamiliar foods, and the musky undertones of a million generations
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: swarmed together to spawn and die in these crowded catacombs
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: of slate and stone. There was a house blending into
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: other houses, close under the loom of the great wall.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: There was a flight of steps, hollowed deep with use,
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: twisting crazily around outer There was a low room, and
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: a slender man named Balin, vaguely glimpsed, who said he
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: was Thenus's brother. There was a bed of skins and
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: woven cloths. Stark slept hands and voices called him back,
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: strong hands, shaking him, urgent voices. He started up, growling
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: like an animal suddenly awakened, still lost in the dark
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: mists of exhaustion, Balin swore and caught his fingers away.
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: What is this you have brought home Finus by the gods,
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: It snapped at me. Theinus ignored him Stark, She said, Stark, listen,
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: men are coming, soldiers. They will question you. Do you
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: hear me, Stark said heavily, I hear, do not speak
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: of Kamar. Stark got to his feet, and Balin said,
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: hastily peace, The thing is safe. I would not steal
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: a death warrant his voice had a ring of truth.
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: Stark sat down again. It was an effort to keep awake.
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: There was a clamor in the street below. It was
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: still night. Balan said, carefully, tell them what you told
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: the captain, nothing more. They will kill you if they know.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: A rough hand thundered at the door, and a voice
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: cried open up. Balan sauntered over to lift the bar.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: Theinus sat beside Stark, her hand touching his. Stark rubbed
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: his face. He had been shaved and washed, his wounds
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: rubbed with solve. The belt was gone, and his blood
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: stained clothing. He realized only then that he was naked,
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: and drew a cloth around him. Theinus whispered, the belt
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: is there on that peg under your cloak. Balan opened
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: the door and the room was full of men. Stark
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: recognized the captain. There were others, four of them young, old, intermediate,
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: annoyed at being hauled away from their beds and their
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: gaming tables at this hour. The sixth man wore the
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: jeweled carass of a noble. He had a nice, kind face,
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: gray hair, mild eyes, soft cheeks, A fine man, but
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: ludicrous in the trappings of a soldier. Is this the man,
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: he asked, and the captain nodded yes. It was his
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: turn to say. Sir Balin brought a chair. He had
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: a fine flourish about him. He wore a crimson jewel
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: in his left ear, and every line of him was
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: quick and sensitive, instinct with mockery. His eyes were brightly cynical,
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: and a face worn lean with years of merry sinning.
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: Stark liked him. He was a civilized man. They all were,
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: the noble, the captain, the lot of them, so civilized
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: that the origins of their culture were forgotten. Half an
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: age before the first clay brick was laid in Babylon
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: two civilized Stark thought peace had drawn there and cut
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: their claws. He thought of the wild clansmen coming fast
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: across the snow, and felt a certain pity for the
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: men of Coushat. The nobles sat down. This is a
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: strange tale, you bring, wanderer, I would hear it from
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: your own lips. Stark told it. He spoke slowly, watching
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: every word, cursing the weariness that fogged his brain. The noble,
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: who was called Rogain, asked him questions, where was the camp,
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: how many men? What were the exact words of the
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: Lord Syrian, And who was he? Stark answered with meticulous care.
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: Rogain sat for some time, lost in thought. He seemed
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: worried and upset, one hand playing aimlessly with the hilt
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: of his sword, a scholar's hand without a callous on it.
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: There is one more thing, said Rogain, What business had
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: you on the moors in winter? Stark smiled. I am
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: a wanderer by profession. Outlaw, asked the captain, and Stark shrugged.
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: Mercenary is a kinder word. Rogain studied the pattern of
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: stripes on the earthman's dark skin. Why did the Lord
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: Cyance so called order you scourged? I had thrashed one
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: of his chieftains. Rogain sighed and rose. He stood, regarding
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: Stark from under brooding brows, and at length he said,
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: it is a wild tale. I can't believe it, And
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: yet why should you lie? He paused, as though hoping
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: that Stark would answer that and relieve him of worry.
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: Stark yawned, The tail is easily proved. Wait a day
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: or two, I will arm the city, said Rogain. I
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: dare not do otherwise, but I will tell you this.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: An astonishing unpleasant look came into his eyes. If the
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: attack does not come, if you have set a whole
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: city by the ears for nothing, I will have you
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: flayed alive and your body tumbled over the wall for
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: the carrion birds to feed on. He strode out, taking
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: his retinue with him. Balen smiled. He will do it too,
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: he said, and dropped the bar. Stark did not answer.
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: He stared at Balin, and then at Venus, and then
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: at the belt hanging on the peg in a curiously
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: blank and yet penetrating fashion, like an animal that thinks
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: its own thoughts. He took a deep breath, then, as
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: though he found the air clean of danger, he rolled
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: over and went instantly to sleep. Balin lifted his shoulders expressively.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: He grinned at Venus, Are you positive it's human? He's beautiful,
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: said Venis, and tucked the cloths around him. Hold your tongue.
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: She continued to sit there, watching Stark's face as the
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: slow dreams moved across it. Balin laughed. It was evening
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: again when Stark awoke. He sat up, stretching lazily. Venus
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: crouched by the hearthstone, stirring something savory in a blackened pot.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: She wore a red kurdle and a necklet of beaten gold,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: and her hair was combed out, smooth and shining. She
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: smiled at him and rose, bringing him his own boots
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: and trousers, carefully cleaned, and a tunic of leather, tanned, fined,
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: and soft as silk. Stark asked her where she got it.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: Balin stole it from the baths where the nobles go.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: He said, you might as well have the best, She laughed.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: He had a devil of a time finding one big
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: enough to fit you. She watched with unshamed interest while
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: he dressed. Stark said, don't burn the soup. She put
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: her tongue out at him. Better be proud of that
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: fine hide while you have it, she said. There's no
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: sign of attack. Stark was aware of sounds that had
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: not been there before, the pacing of men on the
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: wall above the head else, the call of the watch.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: Coushat was armed and ready, and his time was running out.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: He hoped that Cyrin had not been delayed on the moors. Then,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: has said, I should explain about the belt. When Balin
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: undressed you, he saw Kamar's name scratched on the inside
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: of the boss, and he can open a lizard's egg
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: without harming the shell. What about you, asked Stark. She
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: flexed her supple fingers. I do well enough. Balin came in.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: He had been seeking news, but there was little to
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: be had. The soldiers are grumbling about a false alarm,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: he said. The people are excited, but more as though
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: they were playing a game. Coushat has not fought a
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: war for centuries, he sighed, the pity of it is, Stark.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: I believe your story, and I'm afraid Thein has handed
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: him a steaming bowl. Here employ your tongue with this, afraid, ined,
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: have you forgotten the wall? No one has carried it
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: since the city was built? Let them attack. Stark was amused.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: For a child, you know much concerning war. I knew
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: enough to save your skin, she flared, and Balin smiled,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: she has you there, Stark, And speaking of skins, he
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: glanced up at the belt, or better, speaking of talismans,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: which we were not. How'd you come by it? Stark
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: told him he had a sin on his soul, did Coamar,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: and he was my friend. Balen looked at him with
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: deep respect. You were a fool, he said, look you.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: The thing is returned to Coushat. Your promise is kept.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: There is nothing for you here but danger. And were
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: I you, I would not wait to be flayed or
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: slain or taken in a quarrel that is not yours, ah,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: said Stark softly. But it is mine. Lord Syrian made
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: it so. He too, glanced at the belt. What of
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: the talisman? Return it where it came from thanis? Said
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: My brother is a better thief than Kamar. He can
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: certainly do that. No, said Balin, with surprising force. We
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: will keep it, Stark. And I whether it has power,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: I do not know. But if it has I think
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: Kushat will need it. And in strong hands, Stark said somberly.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: It has power the talisman. Whether for good or evil,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: I don't know. They looked at him, startled, but a
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: touch of awe seemed to repress their curiosity. He could
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: not tell them. He was somehow reluctant to tell any
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: one of that dark vision of what lay beyond the
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: gates of death which the talisman of Bancroach had lent him.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: Balin stood up well. For good or evil, at least,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: the sacred relic of Bancroach has come home, He yawned.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: I am going to bed. Will you come thenus, or
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: will you stay and quarrel with our guest. I will stay,
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: she said, and quarrel ah well, Balin sighed puckishly. Good night.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: He vanished into an inner room. Stark looked at theinis.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: She had a warm mouth, and her eyes were beautiful
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: and full of light. He smiled, holding out his hand.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: The night wore on, and Stark lay drowsing. Thenis had
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: opened the curtains. Wind and moonlight swept together into the room,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: and she stood leaning upon the sill above the slumbering city.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: The smile that lingered in the corners of her mouth
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: was sad and far away and very tender. Stark stirred uneasily,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: making small sounds in his throat. His motions grew violent.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: Thenis crossed the room and touched him. Instantly, he was awake, animal,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: She said, softly, you dream. Stark shook his head. His
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: eyes were still clouded, though not with sleep. Blood, he said.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: Heavy in the wind, I smell nothing but the dawn,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: she said, and laughed. Stark rose, get Balen. I'm going
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: up on the wall. She did not know him. Now,
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: what is it? Stark, what's wrong? Get Balen. Suddenly it
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: seemed that the room stifled him. He caught up his
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: cloak and Kamar's belt and flung open the door. Standing
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: on the narrow steps outside, the moonlight caught in his
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: eyes pale as frost fire. Theenis shivered. Balan joined her
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: without being called. He too had slept, but lightly. Together
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: they followed Stark up the rough cut stair that led
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: to the top of the wall. He looked southward, where
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: the plane ran down from the mountains and spread away
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: below couch shot. Nothing moved out there, nothing more the
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: empty whiteness. But Stark said, they will attack at dawn.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: Chapter five. They waited some distance away. A guard leaned
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: against the parapet, huddled in his cloak. He glanced at
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: them incuriously. It was bitterly cold. The wind came whistling
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: down through the gates of death, and below in the
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: streets the watch fires shuddered and flared. They waited, and
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: still there was nothing. Balen said, impatiently, how can you
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: know their coming? Stark shivered a shallow rippling of the
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: flesh that had nothing to do with cold, and every
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: muscle of his body came alive. Phobos plunged downward. The
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: moonlight dimmed and changed, and the plane was very empty,
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: very still. They will wait for darkness. They will have
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: an hour or so between moonset and dawn. Finis muttered dreams. Besides,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: I'm cold. She hesitated, and then crept in under Balin's cloak.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: Stark had gone away from her. She watched him sulkily
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: where he leaned upon the stone. He might have been
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: part of it. That's dark and unstirring. Demos sank low
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: toward the west. Stark turned his head, drawn inevitably to
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: look toward the cliffs above Coushat, soaring upward to blot
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: out half the sky here close under them, they seemed
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: to tower outward in a curving mass, like the last
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: wave of eternity rolling down, crested white with the ash
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: of shattered worlds. I have stood beneath those cliffs before,
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: I have felt them leaning down to crush me, and
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: I have been afraid. He was still afraid. The mind
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: that had poured its memories into that crystal lens had
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: been dead a million years, but neither time nor death
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: had dulled the terror that beset ban Crue much in
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: his journey through that nightmare pass. He looked into the
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: black and narrow mouth of the Gates of Death, cleaving
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: the scarp like a wound, and the primitive ape thing
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: within him cringed and moaned, oppressed with a sudden sense
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: of fate. He had come painfully across half a world
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: to crouch before the gates of death. Some evil magic
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: had let him see forbidden things, had linked his mind
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: in an unholy bond with the long dead mind of
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: one who had been half a god. These evil miracles
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: had not been for nothing. He would not be allowed
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: to go unscathed. He drew himself up sharply then and
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: swore he had left Nuchaka behind, a naked boy running
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: in a place of rocks and sun on mercury. He
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: had become Eric John Stark, a man and civilized. He
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: thrust the senseless premonition from him and turned his back
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: upon the mountains. Demos touched the horizon, a last gleam
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: of reddish light tinged the snow, and then was gone. Theinus,
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: who was half asleep, said, with sudden irritation, I do
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: not believe in your barbarians. I'm going home. She thrust
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: Balin aside, and went away down the steps. The plane
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: was now in utter darkness under the faint, far northern stars.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: Stark settled himself against the parapet. There was a sort
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: of timeless patience about him. Balin envied it. He would
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: have liked to go with theinis. He was cold and doubtful,
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: but he stayed. Time passed endless minutes of it, lengthening
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: into what seemed hours. Stark said, can you hear them? No?
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: They come. His hearing, far keener than Balin's, picked up
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: the little sounds, the vast, inchoate rustling of an army
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: on the move in stealth and darkness, light armed man
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: hunters used to stalking wild beasts in the snow. They
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: could move softly, very softly. I hear nothing, Balin said.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: And again they waited. The westering stars moved toward the horizon,
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: and at last, in the east, a dim pallor crept
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: across the sky. The plain was still shrouded in night,
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: but now Stark could make out the high towers of
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: the king's city of Coushat, ghostly and indistinct, the ancient,
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: proud high towers of the rulers and their nobles. Set
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: above the crowded quarters of merchants and artisans and thieves.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: He wondered who would be king and coushat. By the
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: time this unrisen sun had said, you were wrong, said
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: balin peering. There's nothing on the plain, Stark said wait
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: swiftly now in the thin air of Mars, the dawn
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: came with a rush and a leap, flooding the world
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: with harsh light. It flashed in cruel brilliance from sword blades,
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: from spearheads, from helmets, and burnished mail from the war
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: harness of beasts glistened on bare russet heads, and coats
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: of leather. Set the banners of the clans to burning
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: crimson and gold and green bright against the snow. There
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: was no sound, not a whisper in all the land.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: Somewhere a hunting horn sent forth one deep cry to
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: split the morning. Then burst out the wild skirling of
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: the mountain pipes, and the broken thunder of drums, and
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: a wordless scream of exultation that rang back from the
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: wall of coop shot like the very voice of battle.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: The man of Maca began to move raggedly, slowly at first,
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: then more swiftly, as the press of warriors broke and flowed.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: The barbarians swept towards the city as wooters sweeps over
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: a broken dam. Knots and clumps of men, tall men
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: running like deer, leaping, shouting, swinging their great brands. Riders
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: spurring their mounts until they fled, belly down, spears, axes,
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: sword blades, tossing. A sea of men and beasts, rushing, trampling,
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: shaking the ground with the thunder of their going. And
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: ahead of them all came a solitary figure in black mail,
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: riding a raking beast, trapped all in black and bearing
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: a sable axe. Coushat came to life. There was a
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: swarming and a yelling in the streets, and soldiers began
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: to pour up onto the wall, a thin company. Stark
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: thought and shook his head. Mobs of citizens choked the alleys,
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: and every rooftop was full. A troop of nobles went by,
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: brave in their bright mail, to take up their post
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: in the square by the great gate. Balen said nothing,
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: and Stark did not disturb his thoughts. From the look
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: of him, they were dark. Indeed, soldiers came and ordered
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: them off the wall. They went back to their own roof,
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: where they were joined by Theinus. She was in a
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: high state of excitement, but unafraid let them attack, She said,
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: let them break their spears against the wall, they will
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: crawl away again. Stark began to grow restless. Up in
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: their high emplacements. The big ballistas creaked and thrumbed. The
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: muted song of the bows became a wailing hum. Men
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: fell and were kicked off the ledges by their fellows.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: The blood howl of the clans rang unceasing on the
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: frosty air, and Stark heard the rap of scaling ladders
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: against the stone. Theinus said abruptly, what is that. That
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: sound like thunder rams, He answered, they are battering the gate.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: She listened, and Stark saw in her face the beginning
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: of fear. It was a long fight. Stark watched it
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: hungrily from the roof. All that more, the soldiers of
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: Coushat did bravely and well, but they were as folded
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: sheep against the tall killers of the mountains. By noon,
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: the officers were beating the quarters for men to replace
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: the slain. Stark and Balen went up again on to
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: the wall. The clans had suffered. Their dead lay in
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: windrows under the wall amid the broken ladders. But Stark
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: knew his barbarians. They had sat restless and chafing in
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: the valley for many days, and now the battle madness
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: was on them, and they were not going to be stopped.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: Wave after wave of them rolled up and was cast back,
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: and came on again relentlessly. The intermittent thunder boomed still
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: from the gates, where sweating giants swung their rams under
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: cover of their own bowmen, and everywhere up and down
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: through the forefront of the fighting rode the man in
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: black armor, and wild cheering followed him. Balin said heavily,
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: it is the end of Coushat. A ladder banged against
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: the stones a few feet away. Men swarmed up the rungs,
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: fear sighed clansmen with laughter in their mouths. Stark was
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: first at the head. They had given him a spear.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: He spitted two men through with it and lost it,
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: and a third man came leaping over the parapet. Stark
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: received him into his arms. Balen watched he saw the
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: warrior go crashing back, sweeping his fellows off the ladder.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: He saw Stark's face. He heard the sounds and smelled
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: the blood and sweat of war, and he was sick
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: to the marrow of his bones, and his hatred of
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: the Barbarians was a terrible thing. Stark caught up a
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: dead man's blade, and within ten minutes his arm was
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: as red as a butcher's. And ever he watched the
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: winged helmet that went back and forth below a standard
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: to the clans. By midafternoon, the Barbarians had gained the
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: wall in three places. They spread inward along the ledge,
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: pouring up in a restless tide, and the defenders broke
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: the route became a panic. It's all over now, Stark said,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: Find Fanis and hide her balen. Let fall his sword.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: Give me the talisman, he whispered, and Stark saw that
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: he was weeping. Give it to me, and I will
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: go beyond the gates of death and rouse ban Cruach
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: from his sleep. And if he has forgotten Coushat, I
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: will take his power into my own hands. I will
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: fling wide the gates of death and loose destruction on
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: the man of Makah. Or if the legends are all lies,
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: then I will die. He was like a man crazed,
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: Give me the talisman. Stark slapped him carefully and without heat,
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: across the face. Get your sister Balin, hide her, unless
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: you would be uncle to a red haired brat. He
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: went then like a man who has been stunned. Screaming
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: women with their children clogged the ways that led inward
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: from the wall, and there was bloody work of foot
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: on the rooftops and in the narrow alleys. The gate
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: was holding still. Stark forced his way toward the square.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: The booths of the hucksters were overthrown, the wine jars broken,
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: and the red wine spilled. Beasts squealed and stamped, tired
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: of their chafing harness. Driven wild by the shouting and
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: the smell of blood, the dead were heaped high where
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: they had fallen from above. They were all soldiers here,
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: clinging grimly to their last foothold. The deep song of
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: the rams shook the very stones. The iron sheathed timbers
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: of the gate gave back an answering scream, and towards
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: the end all other sounds grew hushed. The nobles came
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: down slowly from the wall and mounted and sat waiting.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: There were fewer of them now their bright armor was
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: dented and stained, and their faces had a pallor on them.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: One last hammer stroke of the rams, with a bitter shriek,
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: the weakened bolts tore out, and the great gait was
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: broken through the nobles of Coushat made their first and
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: final charge. As soldiers they went up against the riders
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: of Maca, and as soldiers they held them until they died.
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: Those that were left were borne back into the square,
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: caught as in the crest of an avalanche. And first
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: through the gates came the winged battle mask of the
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: Lord Syrian and the sable axe that drank men's lives.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: Where it hewed, there was a beast with no rider
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: to claim it, tugging at its head rope. Stark swung
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: onto the saddle pad and cut it free. Where the
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: press was thickest, a welterer of struggling brutes and men
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: fighting knee to knee, there was the man in black armor,
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: riding like a god, magnificent, born to war. Stark's eyes
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: shone with a strange cold light. He struck his heels
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: hard into the scaly flanks. The beast plunged forward in
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: and over and through, making the long sword sing. The
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: beast was strong and frightened beyond fear. It bit and trampled,
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: and Stark cut a path for them, and presently he
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: shouted above the din ho there, Sirrian, the black mask
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: turned toward him, and the remembered voice spoke from behind
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: the barred slot, joyously, the wanderer, the wild man. There
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: two mounts shocked together. The axe came down in a
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: whistling curve, and a red sword blade flashed to meet it, swift, swift,
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: a ringing clash of steel, and the blade was shattered,
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: and the axe fallen to the ground. Stark pressed in.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: Syrian reached for his sword, but his hand was numbed
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: by the force of that blow, and he was slow
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: a split second. The hilt of Stark's weapon, still clutched
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: in his own numbed grip, fetched him a stunning blow
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: on the helm, so that the metal rang like a
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: flawed bell. The Lord Syrian reeled back only for a moment,
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: but long enough. Stark grasped the war mask and ripped
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: it off and got his hands around the naked throat.
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: He did not break that neck as he had planned,
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: and the klansmen who had started in to save their leaders,
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: stopped and did not move. Stark knew now why the
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: Lord Syrian had never shown his face. The throat he
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: held was white and strong, and his hands around it
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: were buried in a mane of gold red hair that
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: fell down over the shirt of Mail. A red mouth,
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: passionate with fury, wonderful, curving bone under sculptured flesh, eyes
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: fierce and proud and tameless as the eyes of a
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: young eagle, fire blue, defying him, hating him by the gods,
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: said Stark, very softly, by the eternal gods. Chapter six.
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: A woman, and in that moment of amazement, she was
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: quicker than he. There was nothing to warn him, no
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: least flicker of expression. Her two fists came up together
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: between his outstretched arms and caught him under the jaw
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: with a force that nearly snapped his neck. He went
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: over backward, clean out of the saddle, and lay sprawled
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: on the bloody stones, half stunned. The wind knocked out
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: of him. The woman wheeled her mount, bending low, she
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: took up the axe from where it had fallen, and
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: faced her warriors, who were as dazed as Stark. I
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: have led you well, she said, I have taken you
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: kushat will any man dispute me. They knew the axe,
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: if they did not know her. They looked from side
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: to side uneasily, completely at a loss, and Stark, still
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: gasping on the ground, thought that he had never seen
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: anything as proud and beautiful as she was then in
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: her black mail, with her bright hair blowing and her
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: glance like blue lightning. The nobles of Kushet chose that
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: moment to charge. This strange unmasking of the Mekish lord
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: had given them time to rally, and now they thought
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: that the gods had wrought a miracle to help them.
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: They found hope where they had lost everything but carriage,
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: a wench, they cried, a strumpet of the camps, a woman.
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: They howled it like an epithet, and tore into the barbarians. She,
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: who had been Lord Syrian, drove the spurs in deep
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: so that the beast leaped forward, screaming. She went and
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: did not look to see if any had followed. In
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: among the men of Coushat, and the great Axe rose
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: and fell, and rose again. She killed three and left
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: two others bleeding on the stones, and not once did
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: she look back. The clansmen found their tongues siren siren.
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: The crashing shout drowned out the sound of battle. As
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: one man, they turned and followed her. Stark, scrambling for
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: his life under foot, could not forbear smiling. Their childlike
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: minds could see only two alternatives, to slay her out
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: of hand, or to worship her. They had chosen to worship.
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: He thought the bards would be singing of the Lord
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: Syrian of Mecca as long as there were men to listen.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: He managed to take cover behind a wrecked booth and
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: presently make his way out of the square. They had
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: forgotten him for the moment. He did not wish to
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: wait just then until they or she remembered she He
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: still did not believe it quite. He touched the bruise
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: under his jaw where she had struck him, and thought
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: of the leaf swift strength of her, and the way
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: she had ridden alone into battle. He remembered the death
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: of Thord and how she had kept her red wolves tamed,
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: and he was filled with wonder and a deep excitement.
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: He remembered what she had said to him, once, we
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: are of one blood, though we be strangers. He laughed silently,
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: and his eyes were very bright. The tide of war
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: had rolled on toward the King's city, where from the
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: sound of it, there was pot fighting around the castle.
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: Eddies of the main struggle swept shrieking through the streets,
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: but the rat runs under the walls were clear. Everyone
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: had stampeded inward, the victims. With the victors close on
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: their heels, the short northern day was almost gone. He
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: found a hiding place that offered reasonable safety and settled
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: himself to wait. Night came, but he did not move
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: from the sounds that reached him. The sacking of Coushatt
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: was in full swing. They were looting the richer streets first.
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: Their upraised voices were thick with wine and mingled with
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: the cries of women. The reflection of many fires tinged
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: the sky. By midnight, the sounds began to slacken, and
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: by the second hour, after the city slept, drugged with
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: wine and blood and the weariness of battle, stole Ark
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: went silently out into the streets toward the King's city.
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: According to the immemorial pattern of Martian city states, the
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: castles of the king and the noble families were clustered
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: together in solitary grandeur. Many of the towers were fallen
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: now the great halls opened to the sky. Time had
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: crushed the grandeur that had been coushat more fatally than
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: the boots of any conqueror. In the house of the King,
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: the phlamboys guttered low, and the chieftains of Mecca slept
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: with their weary pipers among the benches of the banquet hall.
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: In the niches of the tall carved portal, the guards
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: nodded over their spears. They too had fought that day.
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: Even so Stark did not go near them. Shivering slightly
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: in the bitter wind, he followed the bulk of the
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: massive walls until he found a postern door half open,
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: as some kitchen knave had left it in his flight.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: Stark entered, moving like a shadow. The passageway was empty,
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: dimly lighted by a single torch. A stairway branched off
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: from it, and he climbed that, picking his way by
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: guests and his memories of similar castles he had seen
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: in the past. He emerged into a narrow hall, obviously
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: for the use of servants. A tapestry closed the end,
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: stirring in the chill draft that blew along the floor.
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: He peered around it and saw a massive vaulted corridor,
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: the stone walls paneled in wood, much split and blackened
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: by time, but still showing forth the wonderful carvings of
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: beasts and men larger than life, and overlaid with gold
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: and bright enamel. From the corridor, a single doorway opened,
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: and o tar slept before it, curled on a pallet
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: like a dog. Stark went back down the narrow hall.
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: He was sure that there must be a back entrance
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: to the king's chambers, and he found the little door
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: he was looking for. From there on was darkness. He
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: felt his way, stepping with infinite caution, and presently there
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: was a faint gleam of light filtering around the edges
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: of another curtain of heavy tapestry. He crept toward it
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: and heard a man slow breathing on the other side.
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: He drew the curtain back a careful inch. The man
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: was sprawled on a bench athwart the door. He slept
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: the honest sleep of exhaustion, his sword in his hand,
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: the stains of his day's work still upon him. He
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: was alone in the small room. A door in the
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: farther wall was closed. Stark hit him and caught the
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: sword before it fell. The man grunted once and became
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: utterly relaxed. Stark bound him with his own harness, and
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: shoved a gag in his mouth, and went on through
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: the door in the opposite wall. The room beyond was
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: large and high and full of shadows. A fire burned
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: low on the hearth, and the uncertain light showed dimly
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: the hangings and the rich stuffs that carpeted the floor,
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: and the dark, sparse shapes of furniture. Stark made out
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: the lattice work of a covered bed led into the
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: wall after the northern fashion. She was there, sleeping, her
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: red gold hair the color of the flames. He stood
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: a moment watching her, and then, as though she sensed
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: his presence, she stirred and opened her eyes. She did
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: not cry out. He had known that she would not.
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: There was no fear in her. She said, with a
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: kind of wry humor. I will have a word with
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: my guards about this. She flung aside the covering and rose.
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: She was almost as tall as he, white skinned and
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: very straight. He noted the long thighs, the narrow loins,
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: and magnificent shoulders the small virginal breasts. She moved as
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: a man moves without coquettery. A long furred gown that
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: Stark guest had lately graced the shoulders of the king,
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: lay over a chair. She put it on. Well, wild man,
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: I have come to warn you. He hesitated over her name,
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: and she said, my mother named me Ciara. If that
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: seems better to you, She gave him her falcon's glance.
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: I could have slain you in the square, but now
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: I think you did me a service. The truth would
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: have come out some time better then, when they had
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: no time to think about it. She laughed. They will
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: follow me now over the edge of the world if
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: I ask them, Stark said, slowly, even beyond the gates
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: of death. Certainly there, above all there. She turned to
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: one of the tall windows and looked out at the
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: cliffs and the high notch of the past, touched with
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: greenish silver by the little moons. Bancrourade was a great king.
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: He came out of nowhere to rule the nerlands with
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: a rod of iron, and men speak of him still
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: as half a god. Where did he get his power?
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: If not from beyond the gates of death? Why did
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: he go back there at the end of his days?
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: If not to hide away his secret? Why did he
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: build coushat to guard the past forever? If it is
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: not to hoard that power out of reach of all
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: the other nations of Mars. Yes, Stark, my men will
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: follow me, and if they do not, I will go alone.
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: You are not ban cruach, nor am I. He took
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: her by the shoulders. Listen, Siarra, you're already king in
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: the New Orleans and half a legend. As you stand,
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: be content content. Her face was close to his, and
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: he saw the blaze of it, the white intensity of
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: ambition and of iron pride. Are you content? She asked him?
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: Have you ever been content? He smiled, for strangers? We
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: do know each other well. No, but the spurs are
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: not so deep in me, the wind and the fire.
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: One spends its strength in wandering, the other devours. But
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: one can help the other. I made you an offer once,
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: and you said you would not bargain unless you could
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: look into my eyes. Look now he did, and his
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: hands upon her shoulders trembled. No, he said, harshly, you're
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: a fool, Sierra. Would you be as o tar mad
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: with what you have seen o Tar is an old
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: man and likely crazed before he crossed the mountains. Besides,
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: I am not o Tar, Stark said somberly. Even the
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: bravest may break ban Cruach himself. She must have seen
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: the shadow of that horror in his eyes, for he
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: felt her body tense. What of ban Cruach? What do
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: you know? Stark? Tell me? He was silent, and she
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: went from him angrily. You have the talisman, she said
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: that I am sure of, and be I will flay
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: you alive to get it, she faced him across the room.
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: But whether I get it or not, I will go
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: through the gates of death. I must wait now until
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: after the thaw. The warm wind will blow soon and
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: the gorges will be running full. But afterward I will go,
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: and no talk of fears and demons will stop me.
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: She began to pace the room with long strides, and
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: the full skirts of the gown made a subtle whispering
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: about her. You do not know, she said, in a
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: low and bitter voice. I was a girl, child without
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: a name. By the time I could walk. I was
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: a servant in the house of my grandfather. The two
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: things that kept me living were pride and hate. I
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: left my scrubbing of floors to practice arms with the
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: young boys. I was beaten for it every day, but
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: every day I went. I knew even then that only
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: force would free me. And my father was a king's son,
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: a good man of his hands. His blood was strong
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: in me, I learned. She held her head very high.
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: She had earned the right to hold it. So she
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: finished quietly. I have come a long way. I will
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: not turn back now. Siarra Stark came and stood before her.
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: I am talking to you as a fighting man, an equal.
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: There may be power behind the gates of death. I
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: do not know, but this I have seen madness, horror,
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: an evil that is beyond our understanding. I think you
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: will not accuse me of cowardice. And yet I would
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: not go into that pass for all the power of
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: all the kings of Mars. Once started, he could not
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: stop the full force of that dark vision of the
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: talisman swept over him again in memory. He came closer
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: to her, driven by the need to make her understand. Yes,
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: I have the talisman, and I have had a taste
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: of its purpose. I think Bancroatch left it as a
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: warning so that none would follow him. I have seen
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: the temples and the palaces glitter in the ice. I
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: have seen the gates of death. Not with my own eyes, Sierra,
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: but with his, with the eyes and the memories of
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: ban Cruach. He had caught her again, his hand strong
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: on her strong arms. Will you believe me, or must
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: you see for yourself the dreadful things that walk those
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: buried streets, the shapes that rise from nowhere in the
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: mists of the pass Her gaze burned into his. Her
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: breath was hot and sweet upon his lips, and she
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: was like a sword between his hands, shining and unafraid.
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: Give me the talisman, let me see, he answered, furiously,
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: you are mad as mad as o tar. And he
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: kissed her in a rage, in a panic lest all
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: that beauty be destroyed, a kiss as brutal as a
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: blow that left him shaken. She backed away slowly, one step,
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: and he thought she would have killed him. He said, heavily.
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: If you will see, you will the thing is here.
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: He opened the boss and laid the crystal in her
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: outstretched hand. He did not meet her eyes. Sit down,
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: hold the flat side against your brow. She sat in
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: a great chair of carven Wood. Stark noticed that her
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: hand was unsteady, her face the color of white ash.
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: He was glad she did not have the axe where
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: she could reach it. She did not play at anger.
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: For a long moment she studied the intricate lens, the
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: incredible depository of a man's mind. Then she raised it
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: slowly to her forehead. He saw her grow rigid in
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: the chair. How long he watched beside her, he never knew.
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: Seconds an eternity, he saw her eyes turn blank and strange,
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: and a shadow came into her face, changing it subtly,
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: altering the lines so that it seemed almost a stranger
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: was peering through her flesh. All at once, in a
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: voice that was not her own, she cried out terribly, Ah,
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: Gods of Mars. The talisman dropped, rolling to the floor,
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: and Sierra fell forward into Stark's arms. He thought at
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: first that she was dead. He carried her to the
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: bed in an agony of fear that surprised him with
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: its violence, and laid her down and put his hand
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: over her heart. It was beating strongly. Relief that was
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: almost a sickness swept over him. He turned, searching vaguely
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: for wine and saw the talisman. He picked it up
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: and put it back inside the boss. A jeweled flagon
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: stood on a table across the room. He took it
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: and started back, and then abruptly there was a wild
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: clamor in the hall outside, and Otar was shouting Sierra's name,
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: pounding on the door. It was not barred. In another
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: moment they would burst through, and he knew that they
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: would not stop to inquire what he was doing there.
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: He dropped the flagon and went out swiftly the way
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: he had come. The guard was still unconscious in the
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: narrow hall beyond Stark hesitated. A woman's voice was rising
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: high above the tumult in the main corridor, and he
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: thought he recognized it. He went to the tapestry curtain
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: and looked for the second time around its edge. The
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: lofty space was full of men newly wakened from their
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: heavy sleep, and as nervous as so many bears. Finus
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: struggled in the grip of two of them. Her scarlet
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: curdle was torn, her hair flying in wild elf locks,
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: and her face was the face of a mad thing.
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: The whole story of the Doom of Coushat was written
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: large upon it. She screamed again and again, and would
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: not be silenced. Tell her, tell the witch that leads you,
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: Tell her that she is already doomed to death. With
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: all her army, o Tar opened up the door of
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: Ciarra's room. Finus surged forward. She must have fled through
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: all that castle before she was caught, and Stark's heart
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: ached for her. You she shrieked through the doorway and
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: poured out all the filth of the quarter upon Siarra's name.
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: Balen has gone to bring doom upon you. He will
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: open wide the gates of death, and then you will die. Die. Die.
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: Stark felt the shock of a terrible dread as he
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: let the curtain fall, mad with hatred against conquerors, Balin
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: had fulfilled his raging promise and had gone to fling
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: open the gates of death. Remembering his nightmare vision of
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: the shining evil ones whom bon Cruach had long ago
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: prisoned beyond those gates, Stark felt a sickness grow within
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: him as he went down the stair and out the
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: postern door. It was almost dawn. He looked up at
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: the brooding cliffs, and it seemed to him that the
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: wind in the pass had a sound of laughter that
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: mocked his growing dread. He knew what he must do
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: if an ancient mysterious horror was not to be released
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: upon coushad I may still catch Balin before he had
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: gone too far. If I don't. He dared not think
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: of that. He began to walk very swiftly through the
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: night streets toward the distant towering gates of Death and
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: of Part two of Black Amazon of Mars by Lee Brackett.
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: Part three of Black Amazon of Mars by Lee Bracket.
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Reading by
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: Greg Marguerite, Part three of Black Amazon of Mars by
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: Lee Bracket, Chapter seven. It was past noon. He had
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: climbed high toward the saddle of the pass. Kushat lay
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: small below him, and he could see now the pattern
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: of the gorges, cut ages deep in the living rock
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: that carried the spring torrents of the watershed around the
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: mighty ledge on which the city was built. The pass
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: itself was channeled, but only by its own snows and
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: melting ice. It was too high for a water course. Nevertheless,
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: Snark thought a man might find it hard to stay
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: alive if he were caught there by the thaw. He
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: had seen nothing of Balen. The gods knew how many
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: hours start he had. Stark imagined him scrambling wide eyed
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: over the rocks, driven by the same madness that had
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: sent Theenis up into the castle to call down destruction
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: on Ciar's head. The sun was brilliant, but without warmth.
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: Stark shivered, and the icy wind blew strong. The cliffs
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: hung over him, vast, sheer and crushing, and the narrow
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 1: mouth of the pass was before him. He would go
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: no farther. He would turn back now, but he did not.
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: He began to walk forward into the gates of death.
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: The light was dim and strange. At the bottom of
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: that cleft, little veils of mist crept and clung between
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: the ice and the rock thickened became more dense as
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: he went farther and farther into the pass. He could
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: not see, and the wind spoke with many tongues, piping
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: in the crevices of the cliffs. The steps of the
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: earth Man slowed and faltered. He had known fear in
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: his life before, but now he was carrying the burden
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: of two men's terrors. Ban Cruaches and his own. He stopped,
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: enveloped in the clinging mist. He tried to reason with
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: himself that Ban Croach's fears had died a million years ago,
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: that o Tar had come this way and lived, and
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: Balin had come also, But the en veneer of civilization
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: sloughed away and left him with the naked bones of truth.
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: His nostrils twitched to the smell of evil, the subtle,
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: unclean taint that only a beast, or one as close
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: to it as he can sense and know. Every nerve
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: was a point of pain, raw with apprehension. An overpowering
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: recognition of danger hidden somewhere mocking at him, made his
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: very body change, draw in upon itself, and flattened forward,
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: so that when at last he went on again, he
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: was more like a four footed thing than a man,
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: walking upright, infinitely wary, silent, moving surely over the ice
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: and the tumbled rock. He followed Balen he had ceased
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: to think he was going now on sheer instinct. The
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: pass led on and on. It grew darker, and in
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: the dim, uncanny twilight, there were looming shapes that menaced him,
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: and ghostly wings that brushed him and a terrible stillness
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 1: that was not broken by the eerie voices of the wind,
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: rock and mist and ice, nothing that moved or lived.
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: And yet the sense of danger deepened, And when he paused,
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: the beating of his heart was like thunder in his ears.
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: Once far away, he thought he heard the echoes of
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: a man's voice crying, but he had no sight of balen.
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: The pass began to drop, and the twilight deepened into
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: a kind of sickly night. On and down more slowly,
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: now crouching, slinking, heavily oppressed, tempted to snarl at boulders
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: and tear at wraiths of fog. He had no idea
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: of the miles he had traveled. But the ice was
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: thicker now, the cold intense. The rock walls broke off sharply,
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: the mist thinned, the pallid darkness lifted to a clear twilight.
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: He came to the end of the gates of Death,
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: stark stopped ahead of him, almost blocking the end of
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: the past. Something dark and high and massive loomed in
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: the thinning mists. It was a great karron, and upon
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: it set a figure facing outward from the gates of Death,
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: as though it kept watch over whatever country lay beyond
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: the figure of a man in antique Martian armor. After
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 1: a moment's Stark crept toward the Karen. He was still
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: almost all savage, torn between fear and fascination. He was
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: forced to scramble over the lower rocks of the caron itself.
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: Quite suddenly he felt a hard shock and a flashing
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: sensation of warmth that was somehow inside his own flesh
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: and not in any tempering of the frozen air. He
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: gave a startled leap forward and whirled, looking up into
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: the face of the mailed figure, with the confused idea
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: that it had reached down and struck him. It had
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: not moved, of course, and Stark knew with no need
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: of anyone to tell him that he looked into the
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: face of bound It was a face made for battles
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: and for ruling. The bony ridges, harsh and strong, the
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: hollows under them worn deep with years. Those eyes, dark
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: shadows under the rusty helm had dreamed high dreams, and
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: neither age nor death had conquered them. And even in death,
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 1: ban Cruach was not unharmed. Clad as for battle and
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: his ancient mail, he held upright between his hands a
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: mighty sword. The pommel was a ball of crystal, large
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: as a man's fist, that held within it a spark
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: of intense brilliance. The little blinding flame throbbed with its
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: own force, and the sword blade blazed with a white,
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: cruel radiance. Ban Cruach dead but frozen to eternal changelessness
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 1: by the bitter cold, sitting here upon his Karen for
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: a million years, and warding forever the inner gait of
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: the gates of death, as his ancient city of Coushat
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: warded the us outer Stark took two cautious steps closer
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: to Bancrourage and felt again the shock and the flaring
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: heat in his blood. He recoiled, satisfied. The strange force
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: in the blazing sword made an invisible barrier across the
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: mouth of the pass, protected ban Cruach himself. A barrier
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: of short waves, he thought of the type used in
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: deep therapy, having no heat in themselves, but increasing the
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: heat in body cells by increasing their vibration. But these
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: waves were stronger than any he had known before. A barrier,
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 1: a wall of force closing the inner end of the
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: gates of death, A barrier that was not designed against man.
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 1: Stark shivered. He turned from the somber, brooding form of
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: ban Cruach, and his eyes followed the gaze of the
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: dead king. Out beyond the cairn, he looked across this
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 1: forbidden land, within the gates of death. At his back
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 1: was the mountain barrier before him, a handful of miles
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 1: to the north, the terminus of the Polar cap rose
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: like a cliff of bluish crystal, soaring up to touch
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: the early stars. Locked in between those two Titanic walls
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: was a great valley of ice, white and glimmering. That
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: valley was and very still, and very beautiful. The ice
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: shaped gracefully into curving domes and hollows, and in the
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: center of it stood a dark tower of stone, encyclopedian
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: bulk that Stark new must go down an unguessable distance
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: to its base on the bed rock. It was like
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: the tower in which Kamar had died, But this one
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: was not a broken ruin. It loomed with alien arrogance,
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 1: and within its bulk, pallid lights flickered eerily, and it
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: was crowned by a cloud of shimmering darkness. It was
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: like the tower of his dread vision, the tower that
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: he had seen not as Eric john Stone, but as Bancrourage.
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: Stark's gaze dropped slowly from the evil tower to the
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: curving ice of the valley, and the fear within him
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: grew beyond all bounds. He had seen that too in
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: his vision, the glimmering ice, the domes and hollows of it.
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: He had looked down through it at the city that
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 1: lay beneath, and he had seen those who came and
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: went in the buried streets. Stark hunkered down for a
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: long while. He did not stir. He did not want
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: to go out there. He did not want to go
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: out from the grim warning figure of Bankrourach with his
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: blazing sword into that silent valley. He was afraid, afraid
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: of what he might see if he went there and
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: looked down through the ice, afraid of the final, dread
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: fulfillment of his vision. But he had come after Balin,
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: and Balin must be out there somewhere. He did not
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 1: want to go, but he was himself and he must.
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: He went, going very softly out toward the Tower of Stone,
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: and there was no sound in all that land. The
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: last of the twilight had faded. The ice gleamed faintly
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: luminous under the stars, and there was light beneath it,
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: eight soft radiance that filled all the valley with the
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: glow of a buried moon. Stark tried to keep his
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: eyes upon the tower. He did not wish to look
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: down at what lay under his stealthy feet. Inevitably, he
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: looked the temples and the palaces glittering in the ice.
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: Level upon level, going down, wells of soft light, spanned
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: with soaring bridges, slender spires, rising an endless variation of
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: streets and crystal walls, exquisitely patterned above and below and overlapping,
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 1: so that it was like looking down through a thousand
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 1: giant snowflakes, a metropolis of gossamer and frost, fragile and
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 1: lovely as a dream. Locked in the clear, pure vault
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 1: of the ice, Stark saw the people of the city
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: passing along the bright streets, their outlines blurred by the
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: icy vault, as things are half obscured by wood, the
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 1: creatures of vision vaguely shining, infinitely evil. He shut his
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: eyes and waited until the shock and the dizziness left him.
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: Then he set his gaze resolutely on the tower and
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: crept on over the glassy sky that covered those buried
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 1: streets silence. Even the wind was hushed. He had gone
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: perhaps half the distance when the cry rang out. It
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: burst upon the valley with a shocking violence. Stark Stark.
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: The ice rang with it, curving ridges picked up his
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: name and flung it back and forth with eerie crystal voices,
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: and the echoes flat out, whispering Stark Stark, until it
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: seemed that the very mountains spoke. Stark whirled about in
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 1: the pallid gloom between the ice and the stars. There
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: was light enough to see the carn behind him, and
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: the dim figure atop it with the shining sword, light
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: enough to see Siarra, and the dark knot of riders
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 1: who had followed her through the gates of death. She
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: cried his name again, come back, come back. The ice
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: of the valley answered mockingly, come back, come back. And
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: Stark was gripped with a terror that held him motionless.
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 1: She should not have called him, She should not have
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: made a sound in that deathly place. A man's hoarse
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: scream rose above the flying echoes. The riders turned and fled.
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: Suddenly the squealing, hissing beasts, crowding each other, floundering wildly
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 1: on the rocks of the carn, stampeding back into the pass,
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 1: Siarra was left alone. Stark saw her fight the rearing beast.
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 1: She rode and then flung herself out of the saddle
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: and let it go. She came toward him, running, clad
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 1: all in her black armor, the great axe swinging high
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: behind you, Stark, Oh, Gods of Mars. He turned. Then
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: he saw them coming out from the Tower of Stone,
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 1: the pale, shining creatures that moved so swiftly across the ice,
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 1: so fleet and swift that no man living could outrun them.
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 1: He shouted to Siara to turn back. He drew his
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 1: sword and over his shoulder, he cursed her in a
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 1: black fury, because he could hear her mailed feet coming
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 1: on behind him. The gliding creatures, sleek and slender, read like, bending,
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: delicate as wraiths, their bodies shaped from northern rainbows of
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: amethyst and rose. If they should touch Siarra, if their
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: loathsome hands should touch her, Stark let out one raging,
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 1: catlike scream and rushed them. The opalescent bodies slipped away
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: beyond his reach. The creatures watched him. They had no faces,
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 1: but they watched. They were eyeless, but not blind, earless
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: but not without hearing. The inquisitive tendrils that formed their
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: sensory organ stirred and shifted like the petals of ungodly flowers,
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: and the color of them was the white frost fire
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 1: that dances on the snow. Go back, Siarra, But she
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 1: would not go, and he knew that they would not
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: have led her. She reached him, and they set their
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 1: backs together. The shining ones ringed them around many feet
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 1: away across the ice, and watched the long sword and
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 1: the great hungry axe. And there was something in the
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: lithsome swaying of their bodies that suggested laughter. You fool,
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 1: said Stark, you bloody fool. And you answered, Siarra, Oh, yes,
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 1: I know about Balen, that mad girl screaming in the palace.
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 1: She told me, and you were seen from the wall
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: climbing to the gates of death. I tried to catch you.
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 1: Why she did not answer that they won't fight us, Stark,
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: do you think we could make it back to the Karen? No,
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 1: but we can try guarding each other's backs. They began
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 1: to walk toward ban Cruach and the pass. If they
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 1: could once reach the barrier, they would be safe. Stark
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 1: knew now what Bancrouach's wall of force was built against,
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: and he began to guess the riddle of the gates
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 1: of death. The shining ones glided with them, out of reach.
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: They did not try to bar the way. They formed
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 1: a circle around the men and woman, moving with them
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 1: and around them at the same time, an endless, weaving
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: chain of many bodies, shining with soft jewel tones of color.
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 1: They drew closer and closer to the Karen, to the
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 1: brooding figure of Bankrouach and his sword. It crossed Stark's
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 1: mind that the creatures were playing with him in Siara,
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: yet they had no weapons. Almost he began to hope.
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 1: From the tower where the shimmering cloud of darkness clung
• 1:55:01
  Speaker 1: came a black crescent of force that swept across the
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: ice field like a sickle and gathered the two humans
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 1: in it. Stark felt a shock of numbing cold that
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 1: turned his nerves to ice. His sword dropped from his hand,
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: and he heard Sierra's axe go down. His body was
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 1: without strength, without feeling dead. He fell, and the shining
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 1: ones glided in toward him Chapter eight. Twice before in
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 1: his life Stark had come near to freezing. It had
• 1:55:36
  Speaker 1: been like this, the numbness and the cold. And yet
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: it seemed that the dark force had struck rather at
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 1: his nerve centers than at his flesh. He could not
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: see Siarra, who was behind him, but he heard the
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 1: metallic clashing of her mail, and one small whispered cry,
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: and he knew that she had fallen too. The glowing
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 1: creatures surrounded him. He saw their bodies bending over him,
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: the frosty tendrils of their faces writhing as though in
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: excitement toward delight. Their hands touched him, little hands with
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 1: seven fingers, deft and frail. Even his numbed flesh felt
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 1: the terrible cold of their touch, freezing as outer space.
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 1: He yelled or tried to, but they were not abashed.
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 1: They lifted him and bore him toward the tower, a
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 1: company of them, bearing his heavy weight upon their gleaming shoulders.
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: He saw the tower loom high and higher still above him.
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: The cloud of dark force that grounded blotted out the stars.
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 1: It became too huge and high to see it all.
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 1: And then there was a low, flat arch of stone
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 1: close above his face, and he was inside straight overhead
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: a hundred feet two hundred. He could not tell was
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 1: a globe of crystal fitted into the top of the tower,
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 1: as a jewel is held in a setting. The air
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 1: around it was shadowed with the same eerie gloom that
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 1: hovered outside, but less dense, so that Stark could see
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 1: the smoldering purple spark that burned within the globe, sending
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 1: out its dark vibrations, A globe of crystal with a
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 1: heart of sullen flame. Stark remembered the sword of Bancroach
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 1: and the white fire that burned at its hilt. Two globes,
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 1: the bright cord and the dark. The sword of Bancroach
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 1: touched the blood with heat, the globe of the tower
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 1: deadened the flesh with cold. It was the same force,
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 1: but at opposite ends of the spectrum. Stark saw the
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: cryptic controls of that glooming globe, a bank of them
• 1:57:41
  Speaker 1: on a wide stone ledge just inside the tower, close
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 1: beside him. There were shining ones on that ledge tending
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: those controls, and there were other strange and massive mechanisms
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: there too. Flying spirals of ice climbed up inside the tower,
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 1: spanning the great Stone Well, with mighty bridges joining icy galleries.
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 1: In some of those galleries, Stark vaguely glimpsed rigid, gleaming
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 1: figures like statues of ice, but he could not see
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 1: them clearly as he was carried on. He was being
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 1: carried downward, he passed slits in the wall and knew
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 1: that the pallid lights he had seen through them were
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 1: the moving bodies of the creatures as they went up
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 1: and down these high flung icy bridges. He managed to
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 1: turn his head to look down and saw what was
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 1: beneath him. The well of the tower plunged down a
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 1: good five hundred feet to bed rock, widening as it went.
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: The web of ice bridges and the spiral ways went
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: down as well as up, and the creatures that carried
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 1: him were moving smoothly along a transparent ribbon of ice
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 1: no more than a yard in width. Suspended over that
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 1: terrible drop, Stark was glad that he could not move
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 1: just then. One instinctive start of horror would have thrown
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 1: him and his bearers to the rock below, and would
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 1: have carried Siarro with them down and down, gliding in
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 1: utter silence along the descending spiral ribbon. The great glooming
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 1: crystal grew remote above him. Ice was solid now in
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 1: the slots of the walls. He wondered if they had
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 1: brought Balen this way. There were other openings, wide arches
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 1: like the one they had brought their captives through, and
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: these gave Stark brief glimpses of broad avenues and unguessable
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 1: buildings shaped from the pellelucid ice, and flooded with the
• 1:59:33
  Speaker 1: soft radiance that was like eerie moonlight. At length, on
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 1: what Stark took to be the third level of the city,
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 1: the creatures bore him through one of these archways into
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 1: the streets beyond. Below him now was the translucent thickness
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 1: of ice that formed the floor of this level, and
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 1: the roof of the level. Beneath He could see the
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 1: blurred tops of delicate minarets, the clustering roofs that shone
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 1: like chips of diamond. Above him was an ice roof.
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 1: Elfints spires rose toward it, delicate as needles, lacy battlements
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 1: and little domes, buildings, star shaped, wheel shaped, the fantastic,
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 1: lovely shapes of snow crystals frosted over with a sparkling
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 1: foam of light. The people of the city gathered along
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 1: the way to watch a living, shifting rainbow of amethyst
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 1: and rows and green against the pure blue white, and
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 1: there was no least whisper of sound anywhere for some distance.
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 1: They went through a geometric maze of streets, and then
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 1: there was a cathedral like building, all arched and spired,
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 1: standing in the center of a twelve pointed plaza. Here
• 2:00:45
  Speaker 1: they turned and bore their captives in. Stark saw a
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 1: vaulted roof, very slim and high, etched with a glittering
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 1: tracery that might have been carving of an alien sort,
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 1: delicate as the weavings of spiders. The feet of his
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 1: bearers were silent on the icy paving. At the far
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 1: end of the long vault sat seven of the shining
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 1: Ones in high seats, marvelously shaped from the ice, and
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 1: before them, gray faced, shuddering with cold and not noticing it,
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 1: drugged with a sick horror, stood Balen. He looked around
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 1: once and did not speak. Stark was set on his
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 1: feet with Siara beside him. He saw her face, and
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 1: it was terrible to see the fear in her eyes
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 1: that had never shown fear before he himself was learning
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 1: why men went mad. Beyond the gates of death, Chill,
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 1: dreadful fingers touched him expertly. A flash of pain drove
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 1: down his spine, and he could stand again. The seven
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 1: who sat in the high seats were motionless, their bright
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 1: tendrils stirring with infinite delicacy, as though they studied the
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 1: three humans who stood before them. Stark thought he could
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 1: feel a cold, soft fingering of his brain. It came
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 1: to him that these creatures were probably telepaths. They lacked
• 2:02:06
  Speaker 1: organs of speech, and yet they must have some efficient
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 1: means of communications. Telepathy was not uncommon among the many
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 1: races of the Solar System, and Stark had had experiences
• 2:02:17
  Speaker 1: with it. Before he forced his mind to relax, the
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 1: alien impulse was instantly stronger. He sent out his own
• 2:02:25
  Speaker 1: questing thought and felt it brush the edges of a
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 1: consciousness so utterly foreign to his own that he knew
• 2:02:32
  Speaker 1: he could never probe it, even had he had the skill.
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 1: He learned one thing that these shining, faceless ones looked
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 1: upon him with equal horror and loathing. They recoiled from
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 1: the unnatural human features, and most of all, most strongly.
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 1: They abhorred the warmth of human flesh. Even the infinitesimal
• 2:02:53
  Speaker 1: amount of heat radiated by their half frozen human bodies
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 1: caused the ice folk discomfort. Stark marshold his imperfect abilities
• 2:03:01
  Speaker 1: and projected a mental question to the seven, what do
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 1: you want of us? The answer came back faint and imperfect,
• 2:03:10
  Speaker 1: as though the gap between their alien minds was almost
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 1: too great to bridge, And that answer was one word freedom.
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 1: Balin spoke suddenly. He voiced only a whisper, and yet
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 1: the sound was shockingly loud in that crystal vault. They
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 1: have asked me already. Tell them no, Stark, tell them no.
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 1: He looked at Siarra, then a look of murderous hatred.
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 1: If you turn them loose upon Cushat, I will kill
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 1: you with my own hands before I die. Stark spoke again,
• 2:03:43
  Speaker 1: silently to the seven. I do not understand again the struggling,
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 1: difficult thought. We are the old race, the kings of
• 2:03:54
  Speaker 1: the glacial ice. Once we held all the land beyond
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 1: the mountains. Outside the past you call the gates of death.
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 1: Stark had seen the ruins of the towers out on
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 1: the moors. He knew how far their kingdom had extended.
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 1: We controlled the ice, far outside the polar cap. Our
• 2:04:14
  Speaker 1: towers blanketed the land with the dark force drawn from
• 2:04:18
  Speaker 1: Mars itself, from the magnetic field of the planet. That
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 1: radiation bars out heat from the Sun, and even from
• 2:04:25
  Speaker 1: the awful winds that blow warm from the south. So
• 2:04:29
  Speaker 1: there was never any thaw. Our cities were many, and
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 1: our race was great. Then came Bankurach from the south.
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 1: He waged war against us. He learned the secret of
• 2:04:41
  Speaker 1: the crystal globes and learned how to reverse their force
• 2:04:44
  Speaker 1: and use it against us. He leading his army, destroyed
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 1: our towers one by one and drove us back. Mars
• 2:04:52
  Speaker 1: needed water. The outer ice was melted. Our lovely cities
• 2:04:56
  Speaker 1: crumbled to nothing, so that creatures like Bankurach might have water,
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 1: and our people died. We were treated at last to this,
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 1: our ancient polar citadel, beyond the gates of death. Even
• 2:05:08
  Speaker 1: here ban Croach followed. He destroyed even this tower once
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 1: at the time of the thaw. But this city is
• 2:05:15
  Speaker 1: founded in polar ice, and only the upper levels were harmed.
• 2:05:19
  Speaker 1: Even ban Croach could not touch the heart of the
• 2:05:22
  Speaker 1: eternal polar cap of Mars. When he saw that he
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 1: could not destroy us utterly, he set himself in death
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 1: to guard the gates of death with his blazing sword,
• 2:05:32
  Speaker 1: that we might never again reclaim our ancient dominion. That
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 1: is what we mean when we ask for freedom. We
• 2:05:40
  Speaker 1: ask that you take away the sword of Bancroach, so
• 2:05:43
  Speaker 1: that we may once again go out through the gates
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 1: of death. Stark cried out hoarsely. No, he knew the
• 2:05:52
  Speaker 1: barren deserts of the South, the wastes of red dust,
• 2:05:55
  Speaker 1: the dead sea bottoms, the terrible thirst of Mars, growing
• 2:05:59
  Speaker 1: greater with every year of the million that had passed
• 2:06:02
  Speaker 1: since bon Cruach locked the gates of death. He knew
• 2:06:05
  Speaker 1: the canals, the pitiful waterways that were all that stood
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 1: between the people of Mars and extinction. He remembered the
• 2:06:12
  Speaker 1: yearly release from death, when the spring thaw brought the
• 2:06:15
  Speaker 1: water rushing down from the north. He thought of these
• 2:06:19
  Speaker 1: cold creatures going forth, building again their great towers of stone,
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 1: sheathing half a world in ice that would never melt.
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 1: He thought of the people of Jakara and Valks and Barrakesh,
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 1: of the countless cities of the South, watching for the
• 2:06:35
  Speaker 1: flood that did not come, and falling at last to
• 2:06:39
  Speaker 1: mingle their bodies with the blowing dust. He said again no, never,
• 2:06:46
  Speaker 1: The distant thought voice of the Seven spoke, and this
• 2:06:49
  Speaker 1: time the question was addressed to Siara. Stark saw her face.
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 1: She did not know the mars he knew, but she
• 2:06:56
  Speaker 1: had memories of her own, the mountain valleys of Becca,
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 1: the moors, the snowy gorges. She looked at the shining
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 1: ones in their high seats and said, if I take
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 1: that sword, it will be to use it against you,
• 2:07:09
  Speaker 1: as bon Croach did. Stark knew that the Seven had
• 2:07:13
  Speaker 1: understood the thought behind her words. He felt that they
• 2:07:17
  Speaker 1: were amused. The secret of that sword was lost a
• 2:07:20
  Speaker 1: million years ago, the day Ban Crourach died. Neither you
• 2:07:24
  Speaker 1: nor any one now knows how to use it as
• 2:07:27
  Speaker 1: he did. But the sword's radiations of warmth still lock
• 2:07:31
  Speaker 1: us here. We cannot approach that sword, for its vibrations
• 2:07:35
  Speaker 1: of heat slay us if we do. But you warm
• 2:07:38
  Speaker 1: bodied ones can approach it, and you will do so
• 2:07:41
  Speaker 1: and take it from its place. One of you will
• 2:07:44
  Speaker 1: take it. They were very sure of that. We can
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 1: see a little way into your evil minds. Much we
• 2:07:52
  Speaker 1: do not understand. But the mind of the large man
• 2:07:56
  Speaker 1: is full of the woman's image, and the mind of
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 1: the woman's turns to him. Also, there is a link
• 2:08:02
  Speaker 1: between the large man and the small man, less strong,
• 2:08:06
  Speaker 1: but strong enough, the thought voice of the seven finished.
• 2:08:11
  Speaker 1: The large man will take away the sword for us,
• 2:08:13
  Speaker 1: because he must to save the other two. Siarra turned
• 2:08:18
  Speaker 1: to Stark. They cannot force you, Stark, don't let them,
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 1: no matter what they do to me, don't let them.
• 2:08:26
  Speaker 1: Balin stared at her with a certain wonder. You would
• 2:08:29
  Speaker 1: die to protect Coushat, not Coushat alone, though it's people too,
• 2:08:35
  Speaker 1: are human, she said, almost angrily. There are my red wolves,
• 2:08:40
  Speaker 1: a wild pack, but my own and others. She looked
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 1: at Balan, What do you say your life against the nordlands.
• 2:08:49
  Speaker 1: Balin made an effort to lift his head as high
• 2:08:52
  Speaker 1: as hers, and the red jewel flashed in his ear.
• 2:08:55
  Speaker 1: He was a man crushed by the falling of his
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 1: world and terrified by what is mad passion had led
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 1: him into here, beyond the gates of death. But he
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 1: was not afraid to die. He said so, and even
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 1: Siarra knew that he spoke the truth. But the Seven
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 1: were not dismayed. Stark knew that when their thought voice
• 2:09:15
  Speaker 1: whispered in his mind, it is not death alone you
• 2:09:19
  Speaker 1: humans have to fear, but the manner of your dying.
• 2:09:23
  Speaker 1: You shall see that before you choose. Swiftly, silently, those
• 2:09:28
  Speaker 1: of the ice folk who had borne the captives into
• 2:09:30
  Speaker 1: the city came up from behind where they had stood
• 2:09:33
  Speaker 1: withdrawn and waiting, and one of them bore a crystal
• 2:09:37
  Speaker 1: rod like a scepter, with a spark of ugly purple
• 2:09:40
  Speaker 1: burning in the globe. Den Stark leaped to put himself
• 2:09:44
  Speaker 1: between them and Siarra. He struck out raging, and because
• 2:09:48
  Speaker 1: he was almost as quick as they, he caught one
• 2:09:50
  Speaker 1: of the slim, luminous bodies between his hands. The utter
• 2:09:54
  Speaker 1: coldness of that alien flesh burned his hands as frost
• 2:09:58
  Speaker 1: will burn. Even so he clung on, snarling, and saw
• 2:10:02
  Speaker 1: the tendrils writhe and stiffen as though in pain. Then
• 2:10:06
  Speaker 1: from the crystal rod, a thread of darkness spun itself
• 2:10:10
  Speaker 1: to touch his brain with silence and the cold that
• 2:10:13
  Speaker 1: lies between the worlds. He had no memory of being
• 2:10:16
  Speaker 1: carried once more through the shimmering streets of that elfin
• 2:10:20
  Speaker 1: evil City, back to the stupendous well of the tower
• 2:10:23
  Speaker 1: and up along the spiral path of ice that soared
• 2:10:26
  Speaker 1: those dizzy hundreds of feet from bedrock to the glooming
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 1: crystal globe. But when he again opened his eyes, he
• 2:10:33
  Speaker 1: was lying on the wide stone ledge at ice level.
• 2:10:37
  Speaker 1: Beside him was the arch that led outside. Close above
• 2:10:41
  Speaker 1: his head was the control bank that he had seen before.
• 2:10:45
  Speaker 1: Siarra and Balen were there, also on the ledge. They
• 2:10:49
  Speaker 1: leaned stiffly against the stone wall beside the control bank,
• 2:10:52
  Speaker 1: and facing them was a squat round mechanism from which
• 2:10:56
  Speaker 1: projected a sort of wheel of crystal rods. Their bodies
• 2:11:00
  Speaker 1: were strangely rigid, but their eyes and minds were awake,
• 2:11:04
  Speaker 1: terribly awake. Stark saw their eyes, and his heart turned
• 2:11:09
  Speaker 1: within him. Ciara looked at him. She could not speak,
• 2:11:13
  Speaker 1: but she had no need to, no matter what they
• 2:11:17
  Speaker 1: do to me. She had not feared the swordsmen of Coushat.
• 2:11:22
  Speaker 1: She had not feared her red wolves when he unmasked
• 2:11:24
  Speaker 1: her in the square. She was afraid now, but she
• 2:11:28
  Speaker 1: warned him, ordered him not to save her. They cannot
• 2:11:32
  Speaker 1: force you, Stark. Don't let them. And Balin, too, pleaded
• 2:11:37
  Speaker 1: with him for Coushat. They were not alone on the ledge.
• 2:11:41
  Speaker 1: The ice folk clustered there and out upon the flying
• 2:11:44
  Speaker 1: spiral pathway, on the narrow bridges and the spans of
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 1: fragile ice. They stood in hundreds, watching, eyeless, faceless, their
• 2:11:53
  Speaker 1: bodies drawn in rainbow lines across the dimness of the shaft.
• 2:11:58
  Speaker 1: Stark's mind could hear the silent edges of their laughter,
• 2:12:02
  Speaker 1: secret knowing laughter, full of evil, full of triumph, and
• 2:12:06
  Speaker 1: Stark was filled with a corroding terror. He tried to
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 1: move to crawl towards Sierra, standing like a carven image
• 2:12:14
  Speaker 1: in her black mail, he could not again. Her fierce,
• 2:12:18
  Speaker 1: proud glance met his, and the silent laughter of the
• 2:12:22
  Speaker 1: ice folk echoed in his mind, and he thought it
• 2:12:24
  Speaker 1: very strange that in this moment, now he should realize
• 2:12:28
  Speaker 1: that there had never been another woman like her on
• 2:12:31
  Speaker 1: all of the worlds of the sun. The fear she
• 2:12:34
  Speaker 1: felt was not for herself, It was for him, Apart
• 2:12:39
  Speaker 1: from the multitudes of the ice folk. The group of
• 2:12:42
  Speaker 1: seven stood upon the ledge, and now their thought voice
• 2:12:45
  Speaker 1: spoke to Stark, saying, look about you. Behold the men
• 2:12:50
  Speaker 1: who have come before you through the gates of death.
• 2:12:53
  Speaker 1: Stark raised his eyes to where their slender fingers pointed
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 1: and saw the icy galleries around the tower, saw more
• 2:13:00
  Speaker 1: clearly the icy statues in them that he had only
• 2:13:04
  Speaker 1: glimpsed before. Men set like images in the galleries, men
• 2:13:09
  Speaker 1: whose bodies were sheathed in a glittering mail of ice,
• 2:13:12
  Speaker 1: sealing them forever. Warriors, nobles, fanatics, and thieves, the wanderers
• 2:13:18
  Speaker 1: of a million years, who had dared to enter this
• 2:13:21
  Speaker 1: forbidden valley and had remained forever. He saw their faces,
• 2:13:25
  Speaker 1: their tortured eyes wide open, their features frozen in the
• 2:13:29
  Speaker 1: agony of a slow and awful death. They refused us.
• 2:13:34
  Speaker 1: The seven whispered, they would not take away the sword,
• 2:13:38
  Speaker 1: and so they died. As this woman and this man
• 2:13:40
  Speaker 1: will die unless you choose to save them. We will
• 2:13:44
  Speaker 1: show you human how they died. One of the ice
• 2:13:48
  Speaker 1: folk bent and touched the squat round mechanism that faced
• 2:13:51
  Speaker 1: Balen and Sierra. Another shifted the pattern of control on
• 2:13:55
  Speaker 1: the master bank the wheel of crystal rods on that
• 2:13:59
  Speaker 1: squat mechanism, and began to turn. The rods blurred, became
• 2:14:03
  Speaker 1: a disk that spun faster and faster. High above, in
• 2:14:07
  Speaker 1: the top of the tower, the great globe brooded, shrouded
• 2:14:10
  Speaker 1: in its cloud of shimmering darkness. The disk became a
• 2:14:14
  Speaker 1: whirling blur. The glooming shadow of the globe deepened, coalesced,
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 1: It began to lengthen and descend, stretching itself down towards
• 2:14:22
  Speaker 1: the spinning disk. The crystal rods of the mechanism drank
• 2:14:26
  Speaker 1: the shadow in and out of that spinning blur. There
• 2:14:30
  Speaker 1: came a subtle weaving of threads of darkness, a gossamer
• 2:14:34
  Speaker 1: curtain winding around Siarra and Balen, so that their outlines
• 2:14:38
  Speaker 1: grew ghostly, and the pallor of their flesh was as
• 2:14:41
  Speaker 1: the pallor of snow at night. And still Stark could
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 1: not move. The veil of darkness began to sparkle faintly.
• 2:14:49
  Speaker 1: Stark watched it, watched the chill moats. Brighten watched the
• 2:14:54
  Speaker 1: tracery of frost whiten over. Ciarra's mail, touched Palen's dark
• 2:14:58
  Speaker 1: hair with silver, frost bright, sparkling, beautiful, a hallow of
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 1: frost around their bodies, a dust of splintering diamond across
• 2:15:08
  Speaker 1: their faces, an aeriole of bright light to crown their heads.
• 2:15:13
  Speaker 1: Frost fleshed slowly, hardening in marbly whiteness, as the cold
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 1: slowly increased, and yet their eyes still lived and saw
• 2:15:23
  Speaker 1: and understood. The thought voice of the seven spoke again,
• 2:15:28
  Speaker 1: you have only minutes now to decide. Their bodies cannot
• 2:15:31
  Speaker 1: endure too much and live again. Behold their eyes and
• 2:15:35
  Speaker 1: how they suffer. Only minutes, human, take away the sort
• 2:15:40
  Speaker 1: of bancroach open for us the gates of death, and
• 2:15:43
  Speaker 1: we will release these two alive. Stark felt again the
• 2:15:47
  Speaker 1: flashing stab of pain along his nerves as one of
• 2:15:50
  Speaker 1: the shining creatures moved behind him. Life and feeling came
• 2:15:54
  Speaker 1: back into his limbs. He struggled to his feet. The
• 2:15:58
  Speaker 1: hundreds of the ice folk on the bridges and galleries
• 2:16:01
  Speaker 1: watched him in eager silence. He did not look at them.
• 2:16:05
  Speaker 1: His eyes were on Siarras, and now her eyes pleaded, don't, Stark,
• 2:16:10
  Speaker 1: don't barter the life of the New Orleans for me.
• 2:16:13
  Speaker 1: The thought voice beat at Stark, cutting into his mind
• 2:16:16
  Speaker 1: with cruel urgency. Harry, human, they are already beginning to die.
• 2:16:22
  Speaker 1: Take away the sword and let them live. Stark turned,
• 2:16:26
  Speaker 1: he cried out, in a voice that made the icy
• 2:16:29
  Speaker 1: bridges tremble. I will take the sword. He staggered out,
• 2:16:34
  Speaker 1: then out through the archway across the ice, toward the
• 2:16:37
  Speaker 1: distant Karen that blocked the gates of death. Chapter nine.
• 2:16:47
  Speaker 1: Across the glowing ice of the valley, Stark went at
• 2:16:50
  Speaker 1: a stumbling run that grew swifter and more sure as
• 2:16:53
  Speaker 1: his cold, numbed body began to regain its functions. And
• 2:16:57
  Speaker 1: behind him, pouring out of the tower to watch, came
• 2:17:01
  Speaker 1: the shining ones. They followed after him, gliding Lately. He
• 2:17:06
  Speaker 1: could sense their excitement, the cold, strange ecstasy of triumph.
• 2:17:10
  Speaker 1: He knew that already they were thinking of the great
• 2:17:13
  Speaker 1: towers of Stone rising again above the Norlands, the crystal city,
• 2:17:17
  Speaker 1: still and beautiful under the ice, all vestige of the
• 2:17:21
  Speaker 1: ugly citadels of man gone and forgotten. The Seven spoke
• 2:17:26
  Speaker 1: once more, a warning. If you turned toward us with
• 2:17:30
  Speaker 1: the sword, the woman and the man will die, and
• 2:17:32
  Speaker 1: you will die as well, for neither you nor any
• 2:17:36
  Speaker 1: other can now use the sword as a weapon of
• 2:17:38
  Speaker 1: a fence. Stark ran on. He was thinking then, only
• 2:17:42
  Speaker 1: of Ciara, with the frost crystals gleaming on her marble
• 2:17:46
  Speaker 1: flesh and her eyes full of mute torment. The Caran
• 2:17:50
  Speaker 1: loomed up ahead, dark and high. It seemed as Stark
• 2:17:54
  Speaker 1: that the brooding figure of Bonkarach watched him coming with
• 2:17:57
  Speaker 1: those shadowed eyes. Beneath the rusty helm, the great sword
• 2:18:01
  Speaker 1: blazed between those dead, frozen hands. The ice folk had
• 2:18:05
  Speaker 1: slowed their forward rush. They stopped and waited well back
• 2:18:10
  Speaker 1: from the cairn. Stark reached the edge of tumbled rock.
• 2:18:14
  Speaker 1: He felt the first warm flare of the force waves
• 2:18:17
  Speaker 1: in his body, and slowly the chill began to creep
• 2:18:20
  Speaker 1: out from his bones. He climbed, scrambling upward over the
• 2:18:24
  Speaker 1: rough stones of the cairn. Abruptly, then at Bancroach's feet,
• 2:18:29
  Speaker 1: he slipped and fell. For a second, it seemed that
• 2:18:32
  Speaker 1: he could not move. His back was turned toward the
• 2:18:35
  Speaker 1: ice Folk. His body was bent forward and shielded, so
• 2:18:39
  Speaker 1: his hands worked with feverish speed. From his cloak, he
• 2:18:43
  Speaker 1: tore a strip of cloth from the iron boss. He
• 2:18:47
  Speaker 1: took the glittering lens, the talisman of ban Cruache. Stark
• 2:18:51
  Speaker 1: laid the lens against his brow and bounded on the
• 2:18:55
  Speaker 1: remembered shock, the flood and sweep of memories that were
• 2:18:59
  Speaker 1: not his own. The mind of Bancroach, thundering its warning,
• 2:19:03
  Speaker 1: its hard won knowledge of an ancient epic war. He
• 2:19:07
  Speaker 1: opened his own mind wide to receive those memories. Before
• 2:19:11
  Speaker 1: he had fought against them. Now he knew that they
• 2:19:14
  Speaker 1: were his one small chance in this swift gambol with death.
• 2:19:18
  Speaker 1: Two things only of his own he kept firm in
• 2:19:22
  Speaker 1: that staggering tide of another man's memories, two names, Ciara
• 2:19:27
  Speaker 1: and Balen. He rose up again, and now his face
• 2:19:31
  Speaker 1: had a strange look, a curious duality. The features had
• 2:19:35
  Speaker 1: not changed, but somehow the lines of the flesh had
• 2:19:38
  Speaker 1: altered subtly, so that it was almost as though the old,
• 2:19:41
  Speaker 1: unconquerable king himself had risen again in battle. He mounted
• 2:19:46
  Speaker 1: the last step or two and stood before bancrourage. A
• 2:19:50
  Speaker 1: shudder ran through him, a sort of gathering and settling
• 2:19:53
  Speaker 1: of the flesh, as though Stark's being had accepted the
• 2:19:57
  Speaker 1: stranger within it. His eyes cold, and as the very
• 2:20:00
  Speaker 1: ice that sheathed the valley burned with a cruel light.
• 2:20:05
  Speaker 1: He reached and took the sword out of the frozen
• 2:20:07
  Speaker 1: hands of Bankruraje, as though it were his own. He
• 2:20:11
  Speaker 1: knew the secret of the metal rings that bound its
• 2:20:14
  Speaker 1: hilt below the ball of crystal. The savage throb of
• 2:20:18
  Speaker 1: the invisible radiation beat in his quickening flesh. He was
• 2:20:22
  Speaker 1: warm again, his blood running swiftly, his muscle sure and strong.
• 2:20:27
  Speaker 1: He touched the rings and turned them. The fan shaped
• 2:20:31
  Speaker 1: aura of force that had closed the gates of death
• 2:20:34
  Speaker 1: narrowed in, and as it narrowed, it leaped up from
• 2:20:37
  Speaker 1: the blade of the sword in a tongue of pale fire,
• 2:20:40
  Speaker 1: faintly shimmering, made visible now by the full focus of
• 2:20:44
  Speaker 1: its strength. Stark felt the wave of horror bursting from
• 2:20:48
  Speaker 1: the minds of the ice folk as they perceived what
• 2:20:50
  Speaker 1: he had done, and he laughed. His bitter laughter rang
• 2:20:55
  Speaker 1: harsh across the valley as he turned to face them,
• 2:20:58
  Speaker 1: and he heard in his brain the shuddering, silent shriek
• 2:21:01
  Speaker 1: that went up from all that gathered company. Ban croach,
• 2:21:06
  Speaker 1: bancroach has returned. They had touched his mind, they knew.
• 2:21:12
  Speaker 1: He laughed again and swept the sword in a flashing arc,
• 2:21:15
  Speaker 1: and watched the long, bright blade of force strike out,
• 2:21:18
  Speaker 1: more terrible than steel against the rainbow bodies of the
• 2:21:21
  Speaker 1: shining ones. They fell like flowers under a scythe they fell,
• 2:21:27
  Speaker 1: and all across the ice the ones who were yet untouched,
• 2:21:30
  Speaker 1: turned about in their hundreds and fled back toward the tower.
• 2:21:34
  Speaker 1: Stark came leaping down the Karen, the talisman of Bancruach
• 2:21:38
  Speaker 1: bound upon his brow, the sword of Bancouach blazing in
• 2:21:42
  Speaker 1: his hand. He swung that awful blade as he ran.
• 2:21:46
  Speaker 1: The force beam that sprang from it cut through the
• 2:21:48
  Speaker 1: press of creatures fleeing before him, hampered by their own
• 2:21:52
  Speaker 1: numbers as they crowded back through the archway. He had
• 2:21:55
  Speaker 1: only a few short seconds to do what he had
• 2:21:58
  Speaker 1: to do. With great strides across the ice, spurning the
• 2:22:03
  Speaker 1: withered bodies of the dead, and then from the glooming
• 2:22:06
  Speaker 1: darkness that hovered around the Tower of Stone, the black
• 2:22:09
  Speaker 1: cold beam struck down like a coiling whip. It lashed him.
• 2:22:14
  Speaker 1: The deadly numbness invaded the cells of his flesh, ached
• 2:22:18
  Speaker 1: in the marrow of his bones. The bright force of
• 2:22:22
  Speaker 1: the sword battled the chill invaders, and a corrosive agony
• 2:22:26
  Speaker 1: tore its Stark's inner body, where the antipathic radiations waged war.
• 2:22:31
  Speaker 1: His steps faltered, He gave one hoarse cry of pain,
• 2:22:35
  Speaker 1: and then his limbs failed, and he went heavily to
• 2:22:37
  Speaker 1: his knees. Instinct only made him cling to the sword.
• 2:22:42
  Speaker 1: Waves of blinding anguish racked him. The coiling lash of
• 2:22:46
  Speaker 1: darkness encircled him, and its touch was the abysmal cold
• 2:22:49
  Speaker 1: of outer space, striking deep into his heart. Hold the
• 2:22:54
  Speaker 1: sword close, hold it closer, like a shield. The pain
• 2:22:58
  Speaker 1: is great, but I will not die. LUs I dropped
• 2:23:01
  Speaker 1: the sword ban Croach. The Mighty had fought this fight before.
• 2:23:06
  Speaker 1: Stark raised the sword again, close against his body. The
• 2:23:10
  Speaker 1: fierce pulse of its brightness drove back the cold, not far,
• 2:23:15
  Speaker 1: for the freezing touch was very strong, but far enough
• 2:23:18
  Speaker 1: so that he could rise again and stagger on the
• 2:23:21
  Speaker 1: dark force of the tower writhed and licked about him.
• 2:23:25
  Speaker 1: He could not escape it. He slashed it in a
• 2:23:28
  Speaker 1: blind fury with the blazing sword, and where the forces met,
• 2:23:31
  Speaker 1: a flicker of lightning leaped in the air. But it
• 2:23:34
  Speaker 1: would not be beaten back. He screamed at it, a
• 2:23:38
  Speaker 1: raging cat cry that was all Stark, all primitive fury
• 2:23:42
  Speaker 1: at the necessity of pain, and he forced himself to run,
• 2:23:46
  Speaker 1: to drag his tortured body faster across the ice, because
• 2:23:50
  Speaker 1: Siara is dying, because the dark cold wants me to stop.
• 2:23:55
  Speaker 1: The ice folk jammed and surged against the archway in
• 2:23:58
  Speaker 1: a panic, hurry to take refuge far below in their
• 2:24:01
  Speaker 1: many leveled city. He raged at them too. They were
• 2:24:06
  Speaker 1: part of the cold, part of the pain. Because of them,
• 2:24:09
  Speaker 1: Siarra and Balen were dying. He sent the blade of
• 2:24:13
  Speaker 1: Force lancing among them, his hatred rising full tide to
• 2:24:17
  Speaker 1: join the hatred of Bancroach that lodged in his mind.
• 2:24:20
  Speaker 1: Stab and cut and slash with the long, terrible beam
• 2:24:24
  Speaker 1: of brightness. They fell and fell, the hideous Shining folk,
• 2:24:29
  Speaker 1: and Stark sent the light of Bancroach's weapons sweeping through
• 2:24:33
  Speaker 1: the tower itself, through the openings that were like windows
• 2:24:36
  Speaker 1: in the stone, again and again, stabbing through those open
• 2:24:40
  Speaker 1: slits as he ran, And suddenly the dark beam of
• 2:24:44
  Speaker 1: force ceased to move. He tore out of it, and
• 2:24:47
  Speaker 1: it did not follow him, remaining stationary as though fastened
• 2:24:50
  Speaker 1: to the ice. The battle of forces left his flesh.
• 2:24:54
  Speaker 1: The pain was gone. He sped on to the tower.
• 2:24:58
  Speaker 1: He was close now. The withered bodies lay in heaps
• 2:25:01
  Speaker 1: before the arch. The last of the Ice folk had
• 2:25:04
  Speaker 1: forced their way inside. Holding the sword level like a lance,
• 2:25:08
  Speaker 1: Stark leaped in through the arch into the tower. The
• 2:25:12
  Speaker 1: Shining ones were dead, where the destroying warmth had touched them.
• 2:25:16
  Speaker 1: The flying spiral ribbons of ice were swept clean of them,
• 2:25:19
  Speaker 1: the arching bridges and the galleries of that upper part
• 2:25:22
  Speaker 1: of the tower. They were dead along the ledge, under
• 2:25:26
  Speaker 1: the control bank. They were dead across the mechanism that
• 2:25:29
  Speaker 1: spun the frosty doom around Siarra and Balen. The whirling
• 2:25:33
  Speaker 1: disk still hummed below in that stupendous well. The crowding
• 2:25:38
  Speaker 1: ice folk made a seething pattern of color on the
• 2:25:41
  Speaker 1: narrow ways. But Stark turned his back on them and
• 2:25:44
  Speaker 1: ran along the ledge. And in him was the heavy
• 2:25:47
  Speaker 1: knowledge that he had come too late. The frost had
• 2:25:51
  Speaker 1: thickened around Siarra and Balen. It encrusted them like stiffened lace,
• 2:25:55
  Speaker 1: and now their flesh was overlaid with a diamond shell
• 2:25:58
  Speaker 1: of ice. Surely they could not live. He raised the
• 2:26:03
  Speaker 1: sword to smite down at the whirling disk, to smash it,
• 2:26:07
  Speaker 1: but there was no need. When the full force of
• 2:26:09
  Speaker 1: that concentrated beam struck it, meeting the focus of shadow
• 2:26:13
  Speaker 1: that it held, there was a violent flare of light
• 2:26:16
  Speaker 1: and a shattering of crystal. The mechanism was silent. The
• 2:26:20
  Speaker 1: glooming veil was gone from around the ice shelled man
• 2:26:24
  Speaker 1: and woman. Stark forgot the creatures in the shaft below.
• 2:26:28
  Speaker 1: He turned the blazing sword full upon Siarra and Balen.
• 2:26:32
  Speaker 1: It would not effect the thin covering of ice. If
• 2:26:35
  Speaker 1: the woman and the man were dead, it would not
• 2:26:37
  Speaker 1: affect their flesh any more than it had Bankruaches. But
• 2:26:41
  Speaker 1: if they lived, if there was still a spark, a
• 2:26:44
  Speaker 1: flicker beneath that frozen mail, the radiation would touch their
• 2:26:48
  Speaker 1: blood with warmth, start again the pulse of life in
• 2:26:51
  Speaker 1: their bodies. He waited, watching Siarra's face. It was still
• 2:26:56
  Speaker 1: as marble and as white. Something instinct, or the warning
• 2:27:01
  Speaker 1: mind of Bangruach, that had learned a million years ago
• 2:27:04
  Speaker 1: to beware the creatures of the ice, made him glance
• 2:27:07
  Speaker 1: behind him. Stealthy, swift and silent up the winding ways
• 2:27:12
  Speaker 1: they came. They had guessed that he had forgotten them
• 2:27:14
  Speaker 1: in his anxiety. The sword was turned away from them now,
• 2:27:18
  Speaker 1: and if they could take him from behind, stun him
• 2:27:20
  Speaker 1: with the chill force of the scepter. Like rods they carried,
• 2:27:24
  Speaker 1: he slashed at them with the sword. He saw the
• 2:27:27
  Speaker 1: flickering beam go down and down the shaft, saw the
• 2:27:30
  Speaker 1: bodies fall like drops of rain, rebounding here and there
• 2:27:34
  Speaker 1: from the flying spans, and carrying the living with them.
• 2:27:38
  Speaker 1: He thought of the many levels of the city. He
• 2:27:41
  Speaker 1: thought of all the countless thousands that must inhabit them.
• 2:27:44
  Speaker 1: He could hold them off in the shaft as long
• 2:27:47
  Speaker 1: as he wished, if he had no other need for
• 2:27:49
  Speaker 1: the sword. But he knew as soon as he turned
• 2:27:52
  Speaker 1: his back they would be upon him again, and if
• 2:27:54
  Speaker 1: he should once fall, he could not spare a moment
• 2:27:58
  Speaker 1: or a chance. He looked at sea Arra, not knowing
• 2:28:00
  Speaker 1: what to do, and it seemed to him that the
• 2:28:02
  Speaker 1: sheathing frost had melted just a little around her face. Desperately,
• 2:28:07
  Speaker 1: he struck down again at the creatures in the shaft,
• 2:28:10
  Speaker 1: and then the answer came to him. He dropped the sword.
• 2:28:14
  Speaker 1: The squat round mechanism was beside him, with its broken
• 2:28:17
  Speaker 1: crystal wheel. He picked it up. It was heavy. It
• 2:28:21
  Speaker 1: would have been heavy for two men to lift, but
• 2:28:24
  Speaker 1: Stark was a driven man. Grunting, swaying with the effort,
• 2:28:27
  Speaker 1: he lifted it and let it fall out and down
• 2:28:31
  Speaker 1: like a thunderbolt. It struck among those slender bridges, the
• 2:28:34
  Speaker 1: spider web of icy strands that spanned the shaft, Stark
• 2:28:38
  Speaker 1: watched it go and listened to the brittle snapping of
• 2:28:41
  Speaker 1: the ice, the final crashing of a million shards at
• 2:28:44
  Speaker 1: the bottom far below. He smiled and turned again to Siara,
• 2:28:49
  Speaker 1: picking up the sword. It was hours later Stark walked
• 2:28:53
  Speaker 1: across the glowing ice of the valley toward the Karen.
• 2:28:56
  Speaker 1: The sword of Bangurach hung at his side. He had
• 2:29:00
  Speaker 1: taken the talisman and replaced it in the boss, and
• 2:29:02
  Speaker 1: he was himself again. Siarra and Balen walked beside him.
• 2:29:07
  Speaker 1: The color had come back into their faces, but faintly,
• 2:29:11
  Speaker 1: and they were still weak enough to be glad of
• 2:29:13
  Speaker 1: Stark's hands to steady them. At the foot of the cairn,
• 2:29:17
  Speaker 1: they stopped, and Stark mounted it alone. He looked for
• 2:29:20
  Speaker 1: a long moment into the face of ban Cruach. Then
• 2:29:24
  Speaker 1: he took the sword and carefully turned the rings upon it,
• 2:29:27
  Speaker 1: so that the radiation spread out as it had before,
• 2:29:30
  Speaker 1: to close the gates of death. Almost reverently. He replaced
• 2:29:35
  Speaker 1: the sword in ban Cruach's hands. Then he turned and
• 2:29:38
  Speaker 1: went down over the tumbled stones. The shimmering darkness brooded
• 2:29:43
  Speaker 1: still over the distant tower. Underneath the ice, the Elfin
• 2:29:47
  Speaker 1: city still spread downward. The shining ones would rebuild their
• 2:29:51
  Speaker 1: bridges in the shaft and go on as they had before,
• 2:29:54
  Speaker 1: dreaming their cold dreams of ancient power. But they would
• 2:29:58
  Speaker 1: not go out through the gates of death. Ban Cruach
• 2:30:02
  Speaker 1: and his rusty mail was still lord of the pass.
• 2:30:05
  Speaker 1: The warder of the Norlands, Stark said to the others,
• 2:30:10
  Speaker 1: tell the story in Coushat. Tell it through the Norlands,
• 2:30:13
  Speaker 1: the story of Bankrurach and why he guards the gates
• 2:30:16
  Speaker 1: of death. Men have forgotten, and they should not forget.
• 2:30:21
  Speaker 1: They went out of the valley. Then, the two men
• 2:30:23
  Speaker 1: and the woman. They did not speak again, and the
• 2:30:26
  Speaker 1: way out through the pass seemed endless. Some of Siarra's
• 2:30:31
  Speaker 1: chieftains met them at the mouth of the pass above Coushat.
• 2:30:34
  Speaker 1: They had waited there, ashamed to return to the city
• 2:30:37
  Speaker 1: without her, but not daring to go back into the
• 2:30:40
  Speaker 1: pass again. They had seen the creatures of the valley,
• 2:30:43
  Speaker 1: and they were still afraid. They gave mounts to the three.
• 2:30:47
  Speaker 1: They themselves walked behind Siarra, and their heads were low
• 2:30:51
  Speaker 1: with shame. They came into Coushat through the riven gate,
• 2:30:55
  Speaker 1: and Stark went with Siarra to the king's city where
• 2:30:58
  Speaker 1: she made Balin follow too. Your sister is there, she said,
• 2:31:04
  Speaker 1: I have had her cared for. The city was quiet
• 2:31:08
  Speaker 1: with the sullen apathy that follows after battle. The men
• 2:31:11
  Speaker 1: of Mecha cheered Siarra in the streets. She rode proudly,
• 2:31:16
  Speaker 1: but Stark saw that her face was gaunt and strained.
• 2:31:20
  Speaker 1: He too was marked deep by what he had seen
• 2:31:22
  Speaker 1: and done beyond the gates of death. They went up
• 2:31:26
  Speaker 1: into the castle Thanis, took Balin into her arms and wept.
• 2:31:31
  Speaker 1: She had lost her first wild fury, and she could
• 2:31:34
  Speaker 1: look at Siarra now with a restrained hatred that had
• 2:31:37
  Speaker 1: a tinge almost of admiration. You fought for Cushat, she said, unwillingly,
• 2:31:43
  Speaker 1: when she had heard the story. For that, at least
• 2:31:46
  Speaker 1: I can thank you. She went to Stark then and
• 2:31:50
  Speaker 1: looked up at him. Coushat and my brother's life. She
• 2:31:54
  Speaker 1: kissed him, and there were tears on her lips. But
• 2:31:57
  Speaker 1: she turned to Siarra with a bitter smile. No one
• 2:32:01
  Speaker 1: can hold him any more than the wind can be held.
• 2:32:04
  Speaker 1: You will learn that She went out then with Baland,
• 2:32:08
  Speaker 1: and left Stark and Siarra alone in the chambers of
• 2:32:11
  Speaker 1: the king. Siarra said, the little one is very shrewd.
• 2:32:16
  Speaker 1: She unbuckled the hauberk and let it fall, standing slim
• 2:32:20
  Speaker 1: in her tunic of black leather, and walked to the
• 2:32:23
  Speaker 1: tall windows that looked out upon the mountains. She leaned
• 2:32:27
  Speaker 1: her head wearily against the stone. An evil day, an
• 2:32:31
  Speaker 1: evil deed, and now I have coushat to govern with
• 2:32:34
  Speaker 1: no reward of power from beyond the gates of death.
• 2:32:38
  Speaker 1: How man can be misled? Stark poured wine from the
• 2:32:42
  Speaker 1: flagon and brought it to her. She looked at him
• 2:32:44
  Speaker 1: over the rim of the cup with a certain wry amusement.
• 2:32:49
  Speaker 1: The little one is shrewd, and she is right. I
• 2:32:52
  Speaker 1: don't know that I can be as wise as she.
• 2:32:55
  Speaker 1: Will you stay with me, Stark? Or will you go?
• 2:32:58
  Speaker 1: He did not answer it once, and she asked him
• 2:33:01
  Speaker 1: what hunger drives you, Stark? It is not conquest, as
• 2:33:05
  Speaker 1: it was with me. What are you looking for that
• 2:33:07
  Speaker 1: you cannot find? He thought back across the years, back
• 2:33:12
  Speaker 1: to the beginning, to the boy Natchaka, who had once
• 2:33:15
  Speaker 1: been happy with old One and little Tika in the
• 2:33:18
  Speaker 1: bleeze and thunder and bitter frosts of a valley in
• 2:33:21
  Speaker 1: the twilight belt of mercury. He remembered how all that
• 2:33:25
  Speaker 1: had ended under the guns of the miners, the men
• 2:33:28
  Speaker 1: who were his own kind. He shook his head. I
• 2:33:32
  Speaker 1: don't know, it doesn't matter. He took her between his
• 2:33:36
  Speaker 1: two hands, feeling the strength and the splendor of her,
• 2:33:39
  Speaker 1: and it was oddly difficult to find words. I want
• 2:33:43
  Speaker 1: to stay, Sierra now this minute. I could promise that
• 2:33:47
  Speaker 1: I would stay forever. But I know myself. You belong here,
• 2:33:52
  Speaker 1: You will make kushat your own. I don't. Someday I
• 2:33:56
  Speaker 1: will go. Sierra nodded. My neck also was not made
• 2:34:01
  Speaker 1: for chains, and one country was too little to hold
• 2:34:04
  Speaker 1: me very well. Stark let it be, so, she smiled,
• 2:34:09
  Speaker 1: and let the wine cup fall. And of Part three
• 2:34:19
  Speaker 1: of Black Amazon of Mars by Lee Bracket. And of
• 2:34:24
  Speaker 1: Black Amazon of Mars by Lee Bracket