Latest / Classic Science Fiction Audiobooks: Free Public Domain Sci-Fi Stories / 🟡 Lorelei of the Red Mist (Full Audiobook) | Leigh Douglass Brackett

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🟡 Lorelei of the Red Mist (Full Audiobook) | Leigh Douglass Brackett · Classic Science Fiction Audiobooks: Free Public Domain Sci-Fi Stories

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  Speaker 1: Chapter one of Larelai of the Red Mist. This is
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  Speaker 1: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by Kirk Zigler, Lake Placid, Florida. Loralai of the
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  Speaker 1: Red Mist by Lee Bracket and Ray Bradberry. Chapter one,
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  Speaker 1: The company dicks were good. They were plenty good you.
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  Speaker 1: Stark began to think maybe this time he wasn't going
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  Speaker 1: to get away with it. His small, stringy body hunched
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  Speaker 1: over the control bank, nursing the last ounce of power
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  Speaker 1: out of the coalman. The hot sky of Venus fled
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  Speaker 1: past the ports and tattered vales of Indigo. Stark was
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  Speaker 1: in shore. Where he was any more. Venus was a
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  Speaker 1: frontier planet and still mostly a big X except to
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  Speaker 1: the Venusians, who weren't sending out any maps. He did
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  Speaker 1: know that he was getting dangerously close to the mountains
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  Speaker 1: of White Cloud, the backbone of the planet, towering far
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  Speaker 1: into the stratosphere magnetic trap with God knew what beyond,
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  Speaker 1: Maybe even God wasn't sure, but it looked like over
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  Speaker 1: the mountains or out death under the guns of the
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  Speaker 1: trel Venus Mines Incorporated Special Police or back to the
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  Speaker 1: Lunicell blocks for life. As a habitual Felon Stark decided
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  Speaker 1: he would go over. Whatever happened. He'd pulled off the
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  Speaker 1: biggest lone wolf capron history, the t V Mines pay
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  Speaker 1: roll ship, for close to a million credits. He cuddled
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  Speaker 1: the metal strong box between his feet and grinned it
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  Speaker 1: would be a long time before anybody equal that. His
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  Speaker 1: mass indicators began to jitter vaguely. A dim purple shadow
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  Speaker 1: in the sky ahead the mountains of White Cloud stood
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  Speaker 1: like a wall against him. Stark checked the positions of
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  Speaker 1: the pursuing ships. There was no way through them. He
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  Speaker 1: said flatly, all right, damn you, and sent the calman
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  Speaker 1: angling up into the thick blue sky. He had no
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  Speaker 1: very clear memories after that. Crazy magnetic vagaries always a
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  Speaker 1: hazard on Venus made his instruments useless. He flew by
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  Speaker 1: the seat of his pants, and he got over, and
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  Speaker 1: the TV men didn't. He was free, with a million
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  Speaker 1: credits in his kick. Far below, in the virgin darkness,
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  Speaker 1: he saw a sullen crimson smear on the night, as
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  Speaker 1: though someone had rubbed it with a bloody thumb. The
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  Speaker 1: Calman dipped toward it. The control bank flickered with blue flame,
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  Speaker 1: the jet timers blue, and then there was just a
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  Speaker 1: screaming of air against the falling hall. Hugh Stark sat
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  Speaker 1: still and waited. He knew before he opened his eyes
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  Speaker 1: that he was dying. He didn't feel any pain, He
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  Speaker 1: didn't feel anything, but he knew just the same part
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  Speaker 1: of him was cut loose. He was still there, but
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  Speaker 1: not attached anymore. He raised his eyelids. There was a ceiling.
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  Speaker 1: It was a long way off. It was black stone,
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  Speaker 1: veined with smoky reds and ambers. He had never seen
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  Speaker 1: it before. His head was tilted toward the right. He
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  Speaker 1: let his gaze move down that way. There were dim tapestries,
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  Speaker 1: more of the black stone, and three tall archways giving
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  Speaker 1: on to a balcony. Beyond the balcony was a sky,
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  Speaker 1: veiled and clouded with red mist. Under the mist, spreading
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  Speaker 1: away from a murky line of cliffs, was an ocean.
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  Speaker 1: It wasn't water, and it didn't have any waves on it,
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  Speaker 1: but there was nothing else to call it. It burned
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  Speaker 1: deep down inside himself, breathing up the red fog, little
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  Speaker 1: angry bursts of flame coiled up under the flat surface,
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  Speaker 1: sending circles of sparks flaring out like ripples from a
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  Speaker 1: dropped stone. He closed his eyes and frowned, and moved
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  Speaker 1: his head restively. There was the texture of fur against
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  Speaker 1: his skin. Through the cracks of his eyelids, he saw
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  Speaker 1: that he lay on a high bed piled with silks
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  Speaker 1: and soft tanned pelts. His body was covered. He was
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  Speaker 1: rather glad he couldn't see it. It didn't matter, because
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  Speaker 1: he wouldn't be using it any more anyway, and it
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  Speaker 1: hadn't been such a hell of a body to begin with.
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  Speaker 1: But he was used to it, and he didn't want
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  Speaker 1: to see it now the way he knew it would
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  Speaker 1: have to look. He looked along over the foot of
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  Speaker 1: the bed, and he saw the woman. She sat watching
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  Speaker 1: him from a massive carved chair, softened with a single,
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  Speaker 1: huge white pelt, like a drift of snow. She smiled
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  Speaker 1: and let him look. A pulse began to beat under
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  Speaker 1: his jaw, very feebly. She was tall and sleek and
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  Speaker 1: insolently curved. She wore a sword of tavern of pale
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  Speaker 1: gray spider silk, held to her body by a bejeweled girdle,
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  Speaker 1: but it was just a nice piece of ornamentation. Her
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  Speaker 1: face was narrow, finely cut, secret faintly amused. Her lips,
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  Speaker 1: her eyes, and her flowing silken hair were all the
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  Speaker 1: same pale, cool shade of aquamarine. Her skin was white,
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  Speaker 1: with no hint of rose. Her shoulders, her forearms, that
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  Speaker 1: long flat curve of her thighs, the pale green tips
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  Speaker 1: of her breasts were dusted with tiny particles that glistened
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  Speaker 1: like powdered diamond. She sparkled softly, like a fairy thing
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  Speaker 1: against the snowy fir, a creature of foam and moonlight
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  Speaker 1: and clear, shallow water. Her eyes never left his, and
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  Speaker 1: they were not human, But he knew that they would
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  Speaker 1: have done things to him if he had had any
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  Speaker 1: feeling before the neck. He started to speak, he had
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  Speaker 1: no strength to move his tongue. The woman leaned forward,
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  Speaker 1: and as though her movement were a signal, four men
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  Speaker 1: rose from the tapestried chattels by the wall. They were
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  Speaker 1: like her. Their eyes were pale and strange, like hers.
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  Speaker 1: She said in liquid high Venusian. You're dying in this body,
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  Speaker 1: but you will not die. You will sleep now and
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  Speaker 1: wake in a strange body in a strange place. Don't
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  Speaker 1: be afraid. My mind will be with yours. I'll guide you.
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  Speaker 1: Don't be afraid. I can't explain now, there isn't time.
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  Speaker 1: But don't be afraid. He drew back his thin lips,
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  Speaker 1: baring his teeth in what might have been a smile.
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  Speaker 1: If it was, it was wolfish and bitter like his face.
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  Speaker 1: The woman's eyes begin to pour coolness into his skull.
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  Speaker 1: They were like two little rivers running through the channels
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  Speaker 1: of his own eyes, spreading silver, green quiet across the
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  Speaker 1: tortured surface of his brain. His brain relaxed, It lay
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  Speaker 1: floating on the water, and then the twin streams became
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  Speaker 1: one broad flowing stream, and his mind or ego, the
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  Speaker 1: thing that was intimately himself, vanished along it. It took
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  Speaker 1: him a long long time to regain consciousness. He felt
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  Speaker 1: as though he had been shaken until pieces of him
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  Speaker 1: were scattered all over inside. Also, he had an instinctive
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  Speaker 1: premonition that the minit he woke up, he would be
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  Speaker 1: sorry he had He took it easy putting himself together.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: He remembered his name, Hughes Stark. He remembered the mining
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  Speaker 1: asteroid where he was born. He remembered the Luna cell
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  Speaker 1: blocks where he had once come Neardyne. There wasn't much
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  Speaker 1: to choose between them. He remembered his face decorating half
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  Speaker 1: the bulletin boards between Mercury and the belt. He remembered
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  Speaker 1: hearing about himself over the telecasts, stuff to frighten babies with,
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  Speaker 1: and he thought of himself committing his first crime, a stunded,
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  Speaker 1: scrawny kit of eighteen, swinging a spanner on a grown
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  Speaker 1: man who was trying to steal his food. The rest
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  Speaker 1: of it came fast, then the t V mind's job,
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  Speaker 1: the getaway that didn't get, the mountains of White Cloud,
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  Speaker 1: the crash that did it. His brain leaped shatteringly, light feeling,
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  Speaker 1: a naked sense of reality swept over him. He lay
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  Speaker 1: perfectly still with his eyes shut, and his mind crawled
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  Speaker 1: at the picture of the shining woman with sea green hair,
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  Speaker 1: and the sound of her voice saying, you will not die,
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  Speaker 1: You will wake in a strange body. Don't be afraid.
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  Speaker 1: He was afraid. His skin pricked and ran cold with it,
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  Speaker 1: his stomach knotted with it. His skin, his stomach, and
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  Speaker 1: yet somehow they didn't feel just right like a new
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  Speaker 1: coat that hasn't shaped to you. He opened his eyes
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  Speaker 1: a cautious crack. He saw a body sprawled on its
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  Speaker 1: side in dirty straw. The body belonged to him because
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  Speaker 1: he could feel the straw pricking it, and the itch
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  Speaker 1: of little things that crawled and ate and crawled again.
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  Speaker 1: It was a powerful body, rangy and flat muscled, much
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  Speaker 1: bigger than his old one. It had obviously not been
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  Speaker 1: starved the first twenty some years of its life. It
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  Speaker 1: was stark, naked. Weather and violence had written history on it,
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  Speaker 1: wheeled white marks on leathery bronze, but nothing seemed to
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  Speaker 1: be missing. There was black hair on his chest and
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  Speaker 1: thighs and forearms, and its hands were lean and sinewy
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  Speaker 1: for killing. It was a human body that was some
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  Speaker 1: There were so many other things it might have been
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  Speaker 1: that his racial snobbery couldn't call human. Like the nameless,
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  Speaker 1: shimmering creature who smiled with strange, pale lips, Stark shut
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  Speaker 1: his eyes again. He lay The intangible self that was
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  Speaker 1: Hugh Stark bellied down in the darkness of the alien shell.
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  Speaker 1: Quiet in drawn, waiting, panny crept upon its soft black paws.
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  Speaker 1: It walked around the crouching ego, and sniffed and padded
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  Speaker 1: and nuzzled, whining, and then struck with its raking claws.
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  Speaker 1: After a while, it went away empty. The lips that
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  Speaker 1: were now Stark's lips twitched in a thin, cruel smile.
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  Speaker 1: He had done six months once in the Luna's solitary crips.
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  Speaker 1: If a man could do that and come out sane
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  Speaker 1: and on his two feet, he could stand anything, even this.
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  Speaker 1: It came to him then, rather to flo that the
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  Speaker 1: woman and her four companions had probably softened the shock
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  Speaker 1: by hypnotic suggestion. His subconscious understood and accepted the change.
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  Speaker 1: It was only his conscious mind that was superficially scared
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  Speaker 1: to death. Hugh Stark cursed the woman with great thoroughness
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  Speaker 1: in seven languages and some odd dialects. He became healthily
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  Speaker 1: enraged that any dame should play around with him like that.
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  Speaker 1: Then he thought, what the hell, I'm alive, and it
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  Speaker 1: looks like I got the best of the trade in.
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  Speaker 1: He opened his eyes again secretly on his new world.
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  Speaker 1: He lay at one end of a square stone hall,
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  Speaker 1: good sized, with two straight lines of pillars cut from
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  Speaker 1: some dark Venusian wood. There were long crude benches and tables.
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  Speaker 1: Fires had been burning on round brick hearth's space between
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  Speaker 1: the pillars. They were embers. Now the smoke climbed up,
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  Speaker 1: tarnishing the gold and bronze of shields hung on the
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  Speaker 1: walls and pediments, dulling the blades of long swords, the spears,
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  Speaker 1: the tapestries and hides and trophies. It was very quiet
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  Speaker 1: in the hall. Somewhere outside of it there was fighting
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  Speaker 1: going on, heavy vicious fighting. The noise of it didn't
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  Speaker 1: touch the silence, except to make it deeper. There were
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  Speaker 1: two men beside Stark in the hall. They were close
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  Speaker 1: to him on a lowed dais. One of them sat
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  Speaker 1: in a carved high seat, not moving, his big scarred
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  Speaker 1: hands flat on the table in front of him. The
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  Speaker 1: other crouched on the floor by his feet. His head
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  Speaker 1: was bent forward so that his mop of lint white
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  Speaker 1: hair hid his face and the harp between his thighs.
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  Speaker 1: He was a little man, a swamp edger from his
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  Speaker 1: albino coloring. Stark looked back at the man in the chair.
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  Speaker 1: The man spoke harshly, why doesn't she send word? The
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  Speaker 1: harp gave out a sudden, bitter cord. That was all
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  Speaker 1: Stark hardly noticed. His whole attention was drawn to the speaker.
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  Speaker 1: His heart began to pound, his muscles coiled and lay ready.
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  Speaker 1: There was a bitter taste in his mouth. He recognized it.
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  Speaker 1: It was hate. He had never seen the man before,
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  Speaker 1: but his hands twitched with the urge to kill. He
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  Speaker 1: was big, nearly seven feet, and muscled like a draft horse,
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  Speaker 1: but his body, naked above a gold bossed, leathered kilt,
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  Speaker 1: was lit and quick as a greyhound in spite of
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  Speaker 1: its weight. His face was square, strong boned, weathered, and
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  Speaker 1: still young. It was a face that had laughed a
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  Speaker 1: lot once, and like wine and pretty girls, it had
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  Speaker 1: forgotten those things now, except maybe the wine. It was
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  Speaker 1: drawn and cruel, with pain, a look as if something
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  Speaker 1: in a cage. Stark had seen that look before in
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  Speaker 1: the Luna blocks. There was a thick white scar across
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  Speaker 1: the man's forehead. Under it, his blue eyes sunken and
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  Speaker 1: dark behind half closed lids. The man was blind. Outside
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  Speaker 1: in the distance, men screamed and died. Stark had been
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: increasingly aware of a soreness and stricture around his neck.
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  Speaker 1: He raised a hand, careful not to rustle the straw.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: His fingers found a long, tangled beard, felt under it
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  Speaker 1: and touched a band of metal. Stark's new body wore
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: a collar like a vicious dog. There was a chain
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  Speaker 1: attached to the collar. Stark couldn't find any fastening. The
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: business had been welded on for keeps. His body didn't
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  Speaker 1: seem to have liked it much. The neck was galled
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  Speaker 1: and shafed. The blood began to crawl up hot into
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  Speaker 1: stark head. He had worn chains before, he didn't like them,
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  Speaker 1: especially around the neck. A door opened suddenly at the
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  Speaker 1: far end of the hall. Fog and red daylight spilled
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  Speaker 1: in across the blackstone floor. A man came in. He
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  Speaker 1: was big, half naked, blonde, and bloody. His long blade
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  Speaker 1: trailed harshly on the flags. His chest was laid open
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  Speaker 1: to the bone, and he held the wound together with
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  Speaker 1: his free hand. Word from be dag, he said, they've
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: driven us back into the city, but so far we're
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: holding the gate. No one spoke. The little man nodded
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  Speaker 1: his white head. The man with a slash chest turned
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: and went out again, closing the door. A peculiar change
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: came over Stark at the mention of the name, but Dag.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: He had never heard it before, but it hung in
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: his mind like a spear point, barbed with strange emotion.
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  Speaker 1: He couldn't identify the feeling, but it brushed the blind
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  Speaker 1: man aside. The hot, simple, hatred, cooled, stark, relaxed in
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  Speaker 1: a sort of icy quiet, deceptively calm as a sleeping cobra.
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  Speaker 1: He didn't question this. He waited for Budag. The blind
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  Speaker 1: man struck his hands down suddenly on the table and
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  Speaker 1: stood up Romna. He said, give me my sword. The
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  Speaker 1: little man looked at him. He had milk blue eyes
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  Speaker 1: and a face like a friendly bulldog. He said, don't
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: be a fool. Fallon Falan said softly, damn you give
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  Speaker 1: me my sword. Men were dying outside the hall, and
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: not dying silently. Folin's skin was greasy with sweat. He
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: made a sudden darting grab toward Romna. Ramna dodged him.
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  Speaker 1: There were tears in his pale eyes. He said brutally,
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  Speaker 1: you'd only be in the way. Sit down, I can
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  Speaker 1: find the point. Fallan said, to fall on it. Rumna's
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: voice went up to a harsh scream. Shut up, shut up,
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  Speaker 1: and sit down. Fallen caught the edge of the table
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  Speaker 1: and bent over it. He shivered and closed his eyes,
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  Speaker 1: and the tears ran out hot under the lids. The
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  Speaker 1: bard turned away and his harp cried out like a woman.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Fallan drew a long, sighing breath. He straightened, slowly, came
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  Speaker 1: around the carved high seat, and walked steadily towards Stark.
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  Speaker 1: You're very quiet, Conan, he said, what's the matter? You
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: ought to be happy, Conan, you ought to laugh and
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: rattle your chain. You're going to get what you wanted?
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: Are you sad because you haven't a mind any more
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  Speaker 1: to understand that? With He stopped and felt with one
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: sandled foot across the straw until he touched Stark's thigh.
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  Speaker 1: Stark lay motionless us Conan said, the blind man, gently
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  Speaker 1: pressing Stark's belly with his foot. Conan, the dog, the betrayer,
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  Speaker 1: the butcher, the knife in the back. Remember what you
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  Speaker 1: did at Falga, Conan, No, you don't remember. Now. I've
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: been a little rough with you, and you don't remember
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  Speaker 1: any more. But I remember, Conan, as long as I
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: live in darkness, I'll remember. Ramna stroked the harp strings
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: and they wept savage tears for strong men, dead of treachery,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: low music, distant, but not soft. Falan began to tremble,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: a shallow animal twitching of the muscles. The flesh of
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: his face was drawn iron shaping under the hammer. Quite
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: suddenly he went down on his knees. His hand struck
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: stark shoulders, slid inward to the throat, and locked there.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Outside the sound of fighting had died away. Stark moved
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  Speaker 1: very quickly, as though he had seen it and knew
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  Speaker 1: it was there. His hand swept out and gathered the
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: slack of the heavy chain and swung it. It started
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: out to be a killing blow. Stark wanted with all
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: his heart to beat Falin's brains out, but at the
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: last second he pulled it, slapping the big man with
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: exquisite judgment across the back of the head. Fowlin grunted
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: and fell sideways, and by that time Ramna had come up.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: He had dropped his harp and drawn a knife. His
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: eyes were startled. Stark sprang up. He backed off, swinging
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: the slack of the chain warningly. His new body moved magnificently.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Outside everything was fine, but inside, his psycho neural set
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: up had exploded into civil war. He was furious with
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: himself for not having killed Fowlin. He was furious with
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: himself for losing enough to want to kill a man
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  Speaker 1: without reason. He hated Foulin. He did not hate Follin
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  Speaker 1: because he didn't know him well enough. Stark's trained, calculating,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: unemotional brain was at grips with a tidal wave of
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: baseless emotion. He hadn't realized it was baseless until his
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: mental monitor condition through years of bitter control, had stopped
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: him from killing. Now, he remembered the woman's voice saying,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: my mind will be with yours. I'll guide you. Kat's Pa. Eh,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: just a hired hand, paid off with a new body
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: in return for two lives. Yeah two this. But Dag,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: whoever he was, Stark knew now what that cold, alien
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: emotion had been leading up to. Hold it, said Stark, hoarsely,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: hold everything, Kat's Pa. You green eyed, she devil. You
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: picked the wrong guy. This time. Just for a eating instant,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: he saw her again, leaning forward, with her hair like
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: running water across the soft foam sparkle of her shoulders.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Her sea pale eyes were full of mocking laughter and
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: a direct, provocative admiration. Stark heard her quite plainly. You
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: may not have any choice, you, Stark. They know Conan
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: even if you don't. Besides, it's of no great importance.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: The end will be the same for them. It's just
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: a matter of time. You can save your new body
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: or not, as you wish. She smiled. I'd like it
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: if you did. It's a good body. I knew it
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: before Conan's mind broke and left it empty. A sudden
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: thought came to Stark, my box, the million credits, Come
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: and get them. She was gone. Stark's mind was clear,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: with no alien will tramping around in it. Fallin crouched
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: on the floor, holding his head. He said, who spoke Ramna?
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: The bard stood staring, His lips moved, but no sound
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: came out. Stark said, I spoke me, you Stark. I'm
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: not Conan, and I never heard of Falga. And I'll
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: bring the first guy that comes near me. Falin stayed motionless,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: his face blank, his breath sobbing in his throat. Ramna
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: began to curse, very softly, not as though he were
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: thinking about it. Stark watched them down the hall. The
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: doors burst open, the heavy reddish mist coiled in with
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: the daylight across the flags, and with them a press
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: of bodies hot from battle, bringing a smell of blood.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Stark felt the heart contract in the hairy breast of
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: the body named Conan. Watching the single figure that led
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: the pack, Ramna called out Budak. She was tall, She
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: was built and muscled like a lioness, and she walked
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: with a flat hipped arrogance, and her hair was like
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: coiled flame. Her eyes were blue hot and bright as
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Falins might have been. Once she looked at Fowlin, she
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: was dressed like him, in a leather killed in sandals,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: her magnificent body bare above the waist. She carried a
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: long sword slung across her back, the hill standing above
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: the left shoulder she had been using it. Her skin
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: was smeared with blood and grime. There was a long
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: cut on her thigh and another across her flat belly.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: The bitter weariness lay on her like a burden. In
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: spite of her denial of it. We've stopped them, Follin,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: she said. They can't breach the gate, and we can
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: hold Cromdua as long as we have food and the
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: sea feeds us. She laughed. But there was a hollow
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: sound to it. God's I'm tired, she halted. Then below
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: the dais, her flame blue gaze swept across Valen, across Romna,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: and rose to meet Hugh Stark's and stayed there. The
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: pulse began to beat under Stark's jaw again, and this
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: time his body was strong, and the pulse was like
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: a drum throbbing. Romna said, his mind has come back.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: There was a long, hard silence. No one in the
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: hall moved. Then the men back of but Dag, big brawny,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: kilted warriors, begin to close on the dais, talking in low,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: snarling undertones that rose toward a mob howl. Folin rose
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: up and faced them and bellowed them to quiet. He's
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: mind to take let him alone. But Dag sprang up
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: on to the dais, one beautiful flowing movement. It isn't possible,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: she said. His mind broke under torture. He's been a
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: drooling idiot with barely the sense to feed himself, and
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: now suddenly you says normal again. Stark said, you know
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: I'm normal. You can see it in my eyes. Yes,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: he didn't like the way she said that. Listen, my
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: name is Hugh Stark. I'm an earth man. This isn't
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Conan's brain. Come back. This is a new deal. I
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: got shoved into this body. What it did before I
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: got it, I don't know, and I'm not responsible. Fallen said,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: he doesn't remember Falga. He doesn't remember the long ships
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: at the bottom of the sea. Follen laughed. Ramna said quietly,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: he didn't kill you, though he could have easily. Would
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Conan have spared you? But Dagg said yes, if he
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: had a better plan. Conan's mind was like a snake.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: It crawled in the dark, and you never know where
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: it was going to strike. Stark began to tell them
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: how it happened, the chain swinging idly in his hand.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: While he was talking, he saw a face reflected in
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: a polished shield hung on a pillar. Mostly it was
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: just a tangled black mass of hair mounted on a
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: frame of long, harsh, jutting bone. The mouth was sensuous,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: with a dark sword of laughter on it. The eyes
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: were yellow, the cruel, brilliant yellow of a killer hawk.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: Stark realized with a shock that the face belonged to him.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: A woman with pale green hair, said Bedick softly. Ron
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: said Fowlin, and Roma's harp made a sound like a
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: high priest's curse. Her people have that power, Romna said.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: They can think a man's soul into a spider and
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: step on it. They may have many powers. Maybe Ron
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: followed Conan's mind wherever it went and told it what
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: to say, and brought it back again. Listen said, Stark angrily,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: I didn't ask. Suddenly, without warning, Romna drew Butudic's sword
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: and threw it at Stark. Stark dodged it. He looked
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: at Romna with ugly yellow eyes. That's fine. Chain me
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: up so I can't fight and kill me from a distance.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: He did not pick up the sword. He'd never used one.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: The chain felt better, not being too different from a
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: heavy belt or a length of cable or the other
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: chains he swung on occasion. Romna said, is that Conan?
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Foulin snarled? What happened? Romna threw my sword at Conan.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: He dodged it and lifted on the ground. Butdick's eyes
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: were narrowed. Conan could catch a flying sword by the hilt,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: and he was the best fighter on the Red Sea.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Barring you, Fowlin. He's trying to trick us, Ron guides
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: him the hell with Ron, Stark clashed his chain. She
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: wants me to kill both of you. I still don't
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: know why. All right, I could have killed Follen easy,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: but I'm not a killer. I've never put down any
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: one except to save my own neck, so I didn't
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: kill him in spite of Ron. And I don't want
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: any part of you or Ron either. All I want
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: is to get the hell out of here. Butdeg said,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: his accent isn't Conan's, and the look in his eyes
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: is different too. Her voice had an odd note in it.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: Romna glanced at her. He fingered a few rippling chords
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: on his harp, and said, there's one way you could
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: tell for shore. A sudden flush began to burn on
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Bedeck's cheek bones. Romna slid unobtrusively out of reach. His
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: eyes danced with malicious laughter, Butdeg smiled the smile of
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: an angry cat, all teeth and no humor. Suddenly, she
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: walked towards Stark, her head erect, her hand swinging loose
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: and empty at her sides. Stark tensed wearily, but the
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: blood leaped pleasantly in his borrowed veins, but dug kissed him.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Stark dropped the chain. He had something better to do
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: with his hands. After a while, he raised his head
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: for breath, and she stepped back and whispered wonderingly. It
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: isn't conan end of chapter one, chapter two of Loralai
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: of the Red Mist by Lee Brackett and Ray Bradbury.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The hall
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: had been cleared, Stark had washed and shaved himself. His
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: new face wasn't bad, not bad at all. In fact,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: it was pretty damn good, and it wasn't known around
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: the system. It was a face that could on a
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: million credits and no questions asked. It was a face
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: that could have a lot of fun on a million credits.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: All he had to figure out now was a way
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: to save the neck the face was mounted on, and
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: get his million credits back from that beautiful she devil
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: named Ron. He was still chained, but the straw had
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: been cleaned up, and he wore a leather killed in
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: a pair of sandals. Fowlin sat in his high seat,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: nursing a flagon of wine. Bedeck sprawled wearily on a
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: fur rug beside him, Romna sat cross legged, his eyes
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: veiled sleepily, stroking soft, wandering music out of his harp.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: He looked Fay Stark knew his swampaedgers. He wasn't surprised.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: This man is telling the truth, Romna said, but there's
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: another mind touching his Ron's. I think I don't trust him,
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: fowl and growled. I couldn't trust to God in Cronan's body.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: Stark said, what's the set up? All the fighting out
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: there and this rondame trying to plant a killer on
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: the inside, and what happened at Falga. I never heard
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: of this whole damn ocean, let alone a place called Falga.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: The Bard swept his hand across the string. I'll tell you,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Hugh Stark, and maybe you won't want to stay in
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: that body any longer. Stark grinned. He glanced at Butdeck.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: She was watching him with a queer intensity from under
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: lowered lids. Stark's grin changed. He began to sweat, get
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: rid of this body. Hell, it was really a body,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: his own, stringy little carcass never felt like this, the
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Bard said. In the beginning in the Red Sea was
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: a race of people still having their fins and scales.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: They were amphibious. But after a while part of this
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: race wanted to remain entirely on land. There was a
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: quarrel and a battle, and some of the people left
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: the sea forever. They settled along the shore. They lost
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: their fins and most of their scales. They had great
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: mental powers, and they loved ruling. They subjugated the human
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: peoples and kept them almost in slavery. They hated their
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: brothers who still lived in the sea, and their brothers
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: hated them. After a time, a third people came to
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: the Red Sea. They were rovers from the north. They
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: raided and raved and wore no man's collar. They made
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: a settlement on Cromdew the Black Rock, and built longships
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: and took toll of the coastal towns. But the slave
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: people didn't want to fight against the rovers. They wanted
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: to fight with them and destroy the sea folk. The
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: rovers were human, and blood calls to blood. But the
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: rovers like to rule too, and this is a rich country. Also,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: the time had come in their tribal development when they
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: were ready to change from nomadic warriors to builders in
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: their own country. So the rovers and the sea folk
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: and the slave people who were caught between the two
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: of them begin their struggle for the land. The Bard's
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: fingers thumbed against the string so that they beat like
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: angry hearts. Stark saw that Butig was still watching him,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: weigh every change of expression on his face. Ramna went on.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: There was a woman named Ron, who had green hair
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: and great beauty, and ruled the sea folk. There was
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: a man called Fowlin of the ships, and his sister Butdig,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: which means dagger in the sheath, and they too ruled
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: the outland rovers. And there was the man called Conan.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: The harp crashed out like a sword blade, striking. Conan
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: was a great fighter and a great lover. He was
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: next under Fowlin of the ships, and Butick loved him,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: and they were plighted when Conan was taken prisoner by
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: the sea folk during a skirmish, and Ron saw him,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: and Conan saw Ran. Hugh Stark had a fleeting memory
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: of Ron's face smiling and her low voice saying, it's
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: a good body. I knew it before. Boudig's eyes were
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: two stones of blue vitriol under her narrow lids. Conan
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: stayed a long time at Falga with Ron of the
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Red Sea. Then he came back to Chrome Deu and
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: said that he had escaped and had discovered a way
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: to take the long ships into the harbor of Falga
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: at the back of Ron's fleet, and from there it
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: would be easy to take the city and Ron with it.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: And Conan and Butick were married. Starch yellow hawkeyes slid over,
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: butdeg sprawled like a young lioness in power and beauty.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: A muscle began to twitch under his cheekbone. Butdig flushed
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: a slow, deep color, and her gaze did not waver.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: So the long ships went out from Chrome Deu across
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: the Red Sea, and Conan led them into a trap
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: at Falga, and more than half of them were sunk.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: Conan thought his ship was free, that he had Ron
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: and all she promised him. But Folan saw what had
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: happened and went after him. They fought, and Conan laid
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: his sword across Falen's brow and blinded him. But Conan
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: lost the fight, Butdig brought them home. Conan was chained
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: naked in the marketplace. The people were careful not to
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: kill him. From time to time other things were done
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: to him. After a while, his mind broke, and Falen
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: had him chained here in the hall where he could
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: hear him babble and play with his chain. It made
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: the darkness easier to bear. But since fall things have
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: gone badly from kom Do. Too many men were lost,
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: too many ships. Now Ron's people have us bottled up here.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: They can't break in, we can't break out, and so
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: we stay until the harp cried out a bitter question
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: and was still after a minute or two, Stark said slowly, Yeah,
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: I get it. Stalemate for both of you, and Ron
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: figured if I could kill off the leaders, your people
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: might give up. He began to curse. What a lousy, dirty,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: sneaky trick. And who told her she could use me?
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: He paused, after all he'd be dead now, after all,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: a new body and a cool million credits. Ah, the
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: hell with Ron? He hadn't asked her to do it,
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: and he wasn't nobody's hired killer. Where did she get
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: off sneaking around his mind trying to make him do
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: things he didn't even know about, especially to someone like Butegg. Still,
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: Ron herself was nobody's crud. And just where was Hugh
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: Stark supposed to cut in on this deal. Cut was right,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: probably with a long sword right through the belly swell
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: spot he was in, and a good three strikes on
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: him already. He was beginning to wish he'd never seen
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: the TV Mind's payroll ship, because then he might never
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: have seen the mountains of White Cloud, he said, because
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: everybody seemed to be waiting for him to say something.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: Usually when there's a deadlock like this, somebody calls in
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: a third party. Isn't there somebody you can yell for?
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: Fowlin shook his rough red head. The slave people might rise,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: but they heaven arms and they're not used to fighting.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: They'd only get massacred, and it wouldn't help us any
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: What about those other uh people that live in the sea?
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: And just what is that? See? Anyhow, some radiation from
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: it wrecked my ship and got me into this bloody mess.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: Be Duck said lazily. I don't know what it is.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: The seas our forefathers sailed on were water, but this
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: is different. It will float a ship if you know
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: how to build the hull very thin of a white
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: metal we mine from the foothills. But when you swim
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: in it, it's like being in a cloud of bubbles.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: It tingles, and the farther down you go in it
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: the stranger it gets dark and full of fire. I
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: stay down for hours, sometimes hunting the beasts that lived there,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: Stark said, four hours. You have diving suits, then what
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: are they? Stark told her. She shook her head, laughing,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: Why weigh yourself down that way? There's no trouble to
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: breathe in this ocean, for Cripe's sake, said Stark. Well,
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: I'll be down. Must be a heavy gas then radioactive
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: surface tension under atmospheric pressure enough to float a light
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: hull and high oxygen content without any dangerous mixture. Well, well, okay,
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: why doesn't somebody go down and see if the sea
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: people will help. They don't like Ron's brunch of the family,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: you said. They don't like us either, said Folin. We
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: stay out of the southern part of the sea. They
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: wreck our ships sometimes. His bitter mouth twisted in a smile.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: Did you want to go to them for help? Stark
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: didn't quite like the way Valin sounded. It was just
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: a suggestion, he said. But dack Rose, stretching, wincing as
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: the stiffened wounds pulled her flesh. Come on, Foulin, let's sleep.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: He rose and laid his hand on her shoulder. Romna's
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: harpstrings breathed the subtle, little mockery of sound. The Bard's
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: eyes were veiled and sleepy, Butdig did not look at
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: Stark called Conan. Stark said, what about me? You stay chained,
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: said Fowlin. There's plenty of time to think, as long
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: as we have food, and the sea feeds us. He followed,
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: but Deg through a curtained entrance to the left. Romna
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: got up, slowly, slinging the harp over one white shoulder.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: He looked steadily into Stark's eyes in the dying light
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: of the fires. I don't know, he murmured. Stark waited,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: not speaking. His face was without expression. Conan, we knew, Stark,
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: we don't know. Perhaps it would have been better if
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: Conan had come back. He ran his thumb absently over
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: the hilt of the knife in his girdle. I don't know.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: Perhaps it would have been better for all of us
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: if I'd cut your throat before. Butig came in Stark's mouth.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: It was not exactly a smile, you see, said the
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: Bard seriously to you from outside. None of this is important,
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: except as it touches you. But we live in this
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: little world, we die in it. To us, it's important.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: The knife was in his hand now it leaped up,
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: glittering into the dredges of the firelight, and fell and
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: leaped again. You fight for yourself, Hugh Stark. Ron also
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: fights through you. I don't know. Stark's gaze did not waver.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: Romna shrugged and put away the knife. It's written of
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: the gods, he said, sighing. I hope they haven't done
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: a bad job of the writing. He went out. Stark
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: began to shiver slightly. It was completely quiet in the hall.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: He examined his collar, the rivets, every separate link of
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: the chain staple to which it was fixed. Then he
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: sat down on the fur rug provided for him in
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: place of the straw. He put his face in his
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: hands and cursed steadily for several minutes, and then struck
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: his fist down hard on the floor. After that, he
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: lay down and was quiet. He thought Ron would speak
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: to him. She did not. The silent, black hours that
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: walked across his heart were worse than any he had
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: spent in the Luna crips. She came soft shod, bearing
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: a candle, but dug the dagger in the sheath. Stark
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: was not sleeping. He rose and stood waiting. She set
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: the candle on the table and came not quite to him,
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: and stopped. She wore a length of white, thin cloth,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: twisted loosely at the waist and dropping to her ankles.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: Her body rose out of it, straight and lovely, touched
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: mystically with shadows in the little wavering light. Who are you?
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: She whispered? What are you? A man? Not Conan? Maybe
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: not you Stark any more, Just a man I loved
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: the man called Conan. Until she caught her breath and
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: moved closer. She put her hand on Stark's arm. The
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: touch went through him like white fire. The warm, clean,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: healthy fragrance of her tasted sweet in his throat. Her
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: eyes searched his If Ron has such great powers, couldn't
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: it be that Conan was forced to do what he did?
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: Couldn't it be that Ron took his mind and molted
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: it in her way, perhaps without his knowing it. It
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: could be. Conan was hot, tempered and quarrelsome. But he,
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: Stark said, slowly, I don't think you could have loved
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: him if he hadn't been straight. Her hand lay still
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: on his forearm. She stood looking at him and then her,
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: and began to tremble, and in a moment she was crying,
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: making no noise about it. Stark drew her gently to him,
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: His eyes blazed yellowly in the candle light. Woman's tears,
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: she said, impatiently. After a bit she tried to draw away.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: I've been fighting too long and losing, and I'm tired.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: He let her step back, not far. Do all the
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: women of Cromduf fight like men if they want to?
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: There have always been shield maidens, And since Falga, I
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: would have had to fight anyway to keep from thinking.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: She touched the collar on Stark's neck and from seeing.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: He thought of Conan in the market square, and Conan
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: shaking his chain and gibbering in Follen's haul, and Beudick
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: watching it. Stark's fingers tightened. He slid his palms upward
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: along the smooth muscles of her arms, across the strait
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: broad planes of her shoulders, on to her neck, the
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: proud strength of it pulsing under his hands. Her hair
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: fell loose. He could feel the redness of it burning him.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: She whispered, you don't love me. No, you're an honest man,
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: Hugh Stark. You want me to kiss you. Yes, you're
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: an honest woman, Budek. Her lips were hungry, passionate, touched
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: with the bitterness of tears. After a while, Stark blew
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: out the candle. I could love you, Budek, not the
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: way I mean, the way you mean. I've never said
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: that to any woman before. But you're not like any
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: woman before. And I'm a different man, strange, so strange,
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: Conan and not yet Conan. I could love you, Beudeck,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: if I lived. Harpstrings gave a thumbing sigh in the darkness,
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: the faintest whisper of sound. Butdick started, sighed, and rose
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: from the fur rug. In a minute, she had found
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: her flint and steel and got the candle lighted. Romna
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: the bard stood in the curtained doorway, watching them presently.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: He said, you're going to let him go? Butdeg said yes.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: Romna nodded. He did not seem surprised. He walked across
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: the dais, laying his harp on the table, and went
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: into another room. He came back almost at once with
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: a hack saw bend your neck, he said to Stark.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: The mettle of the collar was soft when it was
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: cut through. Stark got his fingers under it and bent
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: the ends outward without trouble. His old body could never
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: have done that. His old body could never have done
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: a lot of things. He figured. Ron hadn't cheated him,
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: not much. He got up, looking up butdeg Butdick's head
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: was dropped forward, her face veiled behind shiny hair. There's
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: only one possible way out of Chrome Diu, she said,
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: there was no emotion in her voice. There's a passage
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: leading down through the rock to a secret arbor just
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: large enough to more skiff or two. Perhaps with the
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: knight and the fog, you can slip through Ron's blockade,
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: or you can go aboard one of her ships for Falga.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: She picked up the candle. I'll take you down. Wait,
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: Stark said, what about you. She glanced at him, surprised.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: I'll stay, of course, He looked into her eyes. It's
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: going to be hard to know each other that way.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: You can't stay here, Hugh Stark. The people would tear
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: you to pieces the moment you went into the street.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: They may even storm a hall to take you look here.
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: She set the candle down and led him to a
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: narrow window. Drawing back the high that covered it, Stark
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: saw narrow, twisting streets dropping steeply toward the sullen sea.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: The long ships were broken and sunk in the harbor.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: Out beyond, riding lights flickering in the red fog were
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: other ships. Ron's ships over there, said Bedeg is the mainland.
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: Crom De is connected to it by a tongue of rock.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: The sea folk hold the land beyond it, but we
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: can hold the rock bridge as long as we live.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: We have enough water, enough food from the sea. But
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: there's no soil nor game on crom Do. We'll be
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: naked after a while without leather or flax, and we'll
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: have scurvy without grain and fruit. We're beaten unless the
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: gods send us a miracle. And we're beaten because of
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: what was done at Falga. You can see how the
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: people feel. Stark looked at the dark streets and the
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: silent houses leaning on each other's shoulders, and the mocking
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: lights out in the fog. Yeah, he said, I can see. Besides,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: there's fowlin. I don't know whether he believes your story.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know whether it would matter. Stark nodded, but
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: you won't come with me. She turned away sharply and
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: picked up the candle again. Are you coming, Romna? The
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: bard nodded. He slung his harp over his shoulder. Buteg
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: held back the curtain of a small doorway far to
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: the side. Stark went through it, and Romna followed, and
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: Butdick went ahead with the candle. No one spoke. They
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: went along a narrow passage past storerooms and armories. They
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: paused once while Stark chose a knife, and Romna whispered. Wait.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: He listened intently. Stark and Butdeck strained their ears along
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: with him. There was no sound in the sleeping dun
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: Romna shrugged. I thought I heard sandal scraping stone, he said.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: They went on. The passage, lay behind a wooden door.
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: It led downwards steeply through the rock, a single narrow
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: way with outside galleries or branches. In some places there
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: were winding steps. It ended finally in a flat ledge
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: low to the surface of the cove, which was a
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: small cavern closed in with the black rock. Butdick set
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: the candle down. There were two little skiffs built of
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: some light metal, moored to rings on the ledge. Two
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: long sweeps leaned against the cave wall. They were of
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: a different metal, oddly veined, Butdick laid one across the
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: thwarts of the nearest boat. Then she turned to Stark.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: Romna hung back in the shadows by the tunnel mouth,
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: but Dug said quietly, good bye, man without a name.
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: It has to be good bye. I am leader now
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: in Fallon's place. Besides, these are my people. Her fingers
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: tightened on his wrists, if you could. Her eyes held
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: a brief blaze of hope. Then she dropped her head
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: and said, I keep forgetting you're not one of us.
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: Good Bye, goodbye, Bedig. Stark put his arms round her.
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: He found her mouth almost cruelly. Her arms were tight
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: about him, her eyes half closed and dreaming. Stark's hand
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: slip upward toward her throat and locked on it. She
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: bent back her body like a steel bow. Her eyes
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: got fire in them, looking into Starks, but only for
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: a moment. His fingers pressed expertly on the nerve centers.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: Butdick's head fell forward limply, and then Romna was on
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: Stark's back, and his knife was pricking Stark's throat. Stark
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: caught his wrist and turned the blade away. Blood ran
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: on to his chest, but the cut was not into
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: the artery. He threw himself backward onto the stone. Romna
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: couldn't get clear in time. The breath went out of
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: him in a rushing gasp. He didn't let go of
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: the knife. Stark rolled over. The little man didn't have
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: a chance with him. He was tough and quick, but
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: Stark's sheer sigh smothered him. Stark could remember when Romna
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: would have not seemed small to him. He hit the
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: bard's jaw with his fist. Romna's had cracked hard against
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: the stone. He let go of the knife. He seemed
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: to be through fighting. Stark got up. He was sweating,
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: breathing heavily, not because of his exertion. His mouth was
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: glistening and eager, like a dog's. His muscles twitched, His
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: belly was hot and nodded with excitement. His yellow eyes
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: had a strange look. He went back to beutick. She
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: lay on the black rock on her back. Candlelight ran
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: pale gold across her brown skin, skirting the sharp, strong
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: hollows between her breasts. And under the arching rim of
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: her rib case. Stark knelt across her body, his weight
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: pressed down against her harsh breathing. He stared at her.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: Sweat stood out on his face. He took her throat
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: between his hands again. He watched the blood grow dark
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: in her cheeks. He watched the veins coil on her forehead.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: He watched the redness blacken in her lips. She fought
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: a little, very vaguely, like someone moving in a dream.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: Stark breathed hoarsely, animal like, through an open mouth. Then
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: gradually his body became rigid. His hands froze, not releasing
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: pressure but not adding any. His yellow eyes widened. It
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: was as though he was trying to see Buttick's face,
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: and it was hidden in dense clouds. Back of him,
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: back in the tunnel, was the soft, faint whisper of
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: sandals on uneven rock, sandals walking slowly. Stark did not
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: hear Butick's face glimmered deep in a heavy mist below him,
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: a blasphemy of a face distorted, blackened. Stark's hands began
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: to open. They opened slowly. Muscles stood like coiled ropes
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: in his arms and shoulders, as though he moved them
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: against heavy weights. His lips peeled back from his teeth.
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: He bent his neck, and sweat dropped from his face
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: and glittered on Buttick's breath. Stark was now barely touching
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: Butdick's neck. She began to breathe again painfully. Stark began
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: to laugh. It was not nice laughter. Ron, he whispered, Ron, you,
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: she devil. He fell away from Butdick and stood up,
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: holding himself against the wall. He was shaking violently. I
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: wouldn't use your hate for killing, so you tried to
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: use my passion. He cursed her in a flat, sembolant whisper.
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: He had never in his profane life really cursed anyone before.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: He heard an echo of laughter dancing in his brain.
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: Stark turned. Fowlin of the ship stood in the tunnel mouth.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: His head was bent listening. His blind, dark eyes fixed
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: on Stark as though he saw him. Falin said softly,
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: I hear you, Stark. I hear the other breathing, but
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: they don't speak. They're all right. I didn't mean to
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: do Fallen smiled. He stepped out on the narrow ledge.
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: He knew where he was going, and his smile was
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: not pleasant. I heard your steps in the passage beyond
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: my room. I knew, Butdick was leading you, and where
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: and why? I would have been here sooner, But it's
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: a slow walk in the dark. The candle lay in
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: his path. He felt the heat of it close to
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: his leg, and stopped and felt for it and grounded out.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: It was dark, then, very dark, except for a faint,
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: smudgy glow from the scrap of ocean that lay along
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: the cave floor. It doesn't matter, Fallen said, as long
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: as I came in time. Stark shifted his weight warily. Fallen.
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: I wanted you alone on this night of all nights.
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: I wanted you alone. Butick, fight in my place now, Conan,
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: my manhood needs proving. Stark strained his eyes in the gloom,
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: measuring the ledge, measuring the place where the skiff was moored.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: He didn't want to fight Fallin. In Fallin's place, he
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: would have felt the same. Stark understood perfectly. He didn't
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: hate Fallen, he didn't want to kill him, and he
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: was afraid of Ron's power over him when his emotions
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: got control. You couldn't keep a determined man from killing
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: you and still be uninvolved. Emotionally. Stark would be damned
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: if he'd kill any one to suit ron. He moved silently,
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: trying to slip past Fallen on the outside and get
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: into the skiff. Fallen gave no sign of hearing him.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: Stark did not breathe. His sandals came down lighter than snowflake's.
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: Fallen did not swerve. He would pass Stark with a
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: foot to spare. They came abreast. Folon's hand shot out
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: and caught in Stark's long black hair. The blind man
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: laughed softly and closed in. Stark swung one from the floor.
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: Do it the quickest way and get clear. But Follen
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: was fast. He came in so swiftly that Stark's fist
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: jarred harmlessly along his ribs. He was bigger than Stark
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: and heavier, and the darkness didn't bother him. Stark bared
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: his teeth. Do it quick, brother, and clear out, or
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: that green eyed she cat. Falan's brute bulk weighed him down.
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: Falon's arm crushed his neck. Falan's fist was knocking his
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: guts loose. Stark got moving. He'd fought in a lot
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: of places, He'd learned a lot from stokers and tramps,
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: Martian low canalers, red eyed Nahali in the running gutters
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: of lee. He didn't use his knife. He used his
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: knees and feet and elbows, and his hands fist and flat.
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: It was a good fight. Fowlin was a good fighter,
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: but Stark knew more tricks. One more, Stark thought, one
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: more and he's out. He drew back for it. His
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: heel struck Romna lying on the rock. He staggered, and
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: Follen caught him with a clean swinging blow. Stark fell
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: backward against the cave wall. His head cracked the rock.
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: Light flooded crimson across his brain, and then paled and
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: grew cooler, a woyish of clear silver, green like water.
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: He sank under it. He was tired, desperately tired. His
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: head ached. He wanted to rest, but he could feel
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: that he was sitting up doing something that had to
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: be done. He opened his eyes. He sat in the
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: stern of a skiff. The long sweep was laid into
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: its crutch, held like a tiller bar against his body.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: The blade of the sweep trailed astern in the red sea,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: and where the metal touched there was a spurt of
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: silver fire and a swirling of brilliant moats. The skiff
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: moved rapidly through the sullen fog, through a mist of blood.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: In the hot Venusian night. Bedick crouched in the bough
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: facing Stark. She was bound securely with strips of the
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: white cloth she had worn. Bruises showed dark on her throat.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: She was watching Stark with the intent, unwinking, perfectly expressionless
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: gaze of a tigris. Stark looked away down at himself.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: There was blood on his kilt, a brown smear of
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: it across his chest. It was not his blood. He
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: drew the knife slowly out of its sheath. The blade
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: was dull and crusted, still a little wet. Stark looked
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: at but his lips were stiff, swollen. He moistened them
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: and said hoarsely what happened. She shook her head slowly,
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: not speaking. Her eyes did not waver. A black, cold
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: rage took hold of Stark and shook him ron. He
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: rose and went forward, letting the sweep go where it would.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: He began to untie, Buttick's wrists. A shape swam toward
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: them out of the red mist, a long ship with
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: two heavy sweeps, bursting fire, astern and a slender figure
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: head shaped like a woman, a woman with hair and
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: eyes of aquamarine. It came alongside the skiff. A rope
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: ladder snaked down. Men lined the low rail, slender men
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: with skin that glistened white like powdered snow, and hair
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: the color of distant shallows. One of them said, come aboard,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: Hugh Stark. Stark went back to the sweep. It bit
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: into the sea, sending the skiff in a swift arc
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: away from Ron's ship. Grapnels flew, hooking the skiff at
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: thwart and gunwale Bose appeared in the hands of the men,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: wicked curving things with barbed metal shafts on the string.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: The man said again, politely, come aboard you. Stark finished
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: untying Butick. He didn't speak. There seemed to be nothing
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: to say. He stood back while she climbed the ladder
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: and then followed. The skiff was cast loose. The long
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: ship veered away, gathering speed. Stark said, where are we going?
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: The man smiled to Falga. Stark nodded. He went below
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: with Butick into a cabin with soft couches covered with
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: spider silk and panels of dark wood, beautifully painted, dim,
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: fantastic scenes from the past of Ron's people. They sat
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: opposite each other, still they did not speak. And of
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: chapter two, chapter three of Lorelai of the Red Mist
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: by Lee Brackett and Ray Bradbury. This LibriVox recording is
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. They raised Falga in the opal dawn,
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: a citadel of basalt cliffs, rising sheer from the burning sea,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: with a long arm holding a harbor full of ships.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: There were green fields inland and beyond, cloaked in the
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: eternal mists of Venus. The mountains of white clouds lifted spaceward.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: Stark wished that he had never seen the mountains of
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: white cloud Then, looking at his hands, lean and strong
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: on his long thighs, he wasn't so sure. He thought
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: of Ron waiting for him. Anger, excitement, a confused violence
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: of emotion, set him pacing nervously. But Dag sat quietly, withdrawn, waiting.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: The long ship threaded the crowded moorings and slid into
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: place alongside a stone quay. Men rushed to make it fast.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: They were human men, as Stark judged, humans like, Butick
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: and himself They had the shimmering silver hair and fair
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: skin of the Plateau peoples, the fine cut faces and
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: straight bodies. They wore leather collars with metal tags, and
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: they went naked like beasts, and they were gaunt and
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: bowed with labor. Here and there a man with pale
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: blue green hair and resplendent harness stood godlike above the
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: swarming masses. Stark and but Dag went ashore. They might
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: have been prisoners or honored guests. Surrounded by their escort
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: from the ship. Streets ran back from the harbor, twisting
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: and climbing crazily up the cliffs, houses on each other's backs.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: It had begun to rain, the heavy steaming downpour of venus,
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: and the moist heat brought out the choking stench of people.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: Too many people. They climbed ankle deep in water, sweeping
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: down the streets that were half stairway. Thin naked children
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: peered out of the houses out of narrow alleys. Twice
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: they passed through market squares, where women with blank faces
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: of defeat drew back from the stalls of coarse food
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: to let the party through. There was something wrong. After
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: a while, Stark realized it was the silence in all
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: that horde of humanity. No one laughed or sang or shouted.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: Even the children never spoke above a whisper. Stark began
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: to feel a little sick. Their eyes had a look
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: in them. He glanced at, buttick and away again. The
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: water front streets ended in a sheer basalt face, honeycombed
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: with gallup. Stark's party entered them. Still climbing. They passed
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: level after level of huge caverns open to the sea.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: There was the same crowding, the same stench, the same silence.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: Eyes glinted in the half light. Bare feet moved furtively
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: on stone. Somewhere a baby cried thinly and was hushed
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: at once. They came out on the cliff top into clean,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: high air. There was a city here, broad streets lined
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: with trees, low, rambling villas of the black rock, set
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: in walled gardens, drowned in brilliant vines and giant ferns
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: and flowers. Naked men and women worked in the gardens,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: or hauled carts of rubbish through the alleys, or hurried
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: on errands, slipping furtively across the main streets, where they
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: intersected the mews. The party turned away from the sea,
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: heading toward an even palace that sat like a crown
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: above the city. The steaming rain beat on Stark's bare body,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: and up here you could get the smell of the rain,
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: even through the heavy perfume of the flowers. You could
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: spell Venus in the rain, musky and primitive and savagely alive,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: a facaned giantess with passion flowers in her outstretched hands.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: Stark set his feet down like a panther, and his
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: eyes burned a smoky amber. They entered the palace of Ron.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: She received them in the same apartment where Stark had
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: come to after the crash. Through a broad archway, he
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: could see the high bed where his old body had
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: lain before the life went out of it. The red
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: sea steamed under the rain outside the rusty fog, coiling
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: languidly through the open arches of the gallery. Ron watched
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: them lazily from a raised couch set massively into the wall.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: Her long, sparkling legs sprawled arrogantly across the black spider
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: silk draperies. This time, her tavern was a pale yellow,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: Her eyes were still the color of shoal water, still
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: amused still secret, still dangerous. Stark said, so you made
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: me do it after all, and you're angry. She laughed,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: her teeth showing white and pointed as bone needles. Her
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: gaze held Starks. There was nothing casual about it. Stark's
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: hawkeyes turned to molten yellow like hot gold, and did
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: not waver. Butdegg stood like a bronze spear, her four
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: arms crossed beneath her bear sharp breasts. Two of Ron's
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: palace guards stood behind her. Stark began to walk toward Ron.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: She watched him come. She let him get close enough
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: to reach out and touch her, and then she said, slyly,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: it's a good body, isn't it. Stark looked at her
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: for a moment. Then he laughed. He threw back his
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: head and roared and struck the great corded muscles of
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: his belly with his fist. Presently, he looked straight into
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: Ron's eyes and said, I know you. She nodded, we
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: know each other. Sit down, Hugh Stark. She swung her
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: long legs over to make room half her wreck, now
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: looking at but dag Stark sat down. He did not
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: look at but dag Rand said, will your people surrender now?
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: But Dag did not move, not even her eyelids. If
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: Falen is dead, yes, and if he's not, but Dag stiffened.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: Stark did too, then said, but Dag quietly, they'll wait
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: until he is, or until they must surrender. Ron nodded
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: to the guards. She said, see that this woman is
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: well fed and well treated. But Dog and her escorts
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: had turned to go when Stark said wait. The guards
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: looked at Ron, who nodded and glanced quizzically at Stark.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: Stark said, is foul and dead? Ron hesitated, Then she smiled, no,
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: you have the most damnably tough mind, Stark. You struck deep,
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: but not deep enough. He may still die. But no,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: he's not dead. She turned to Bedeg and said, with
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: easy mockery, you needn't hold anger against Stark. I'm the
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: one who should be angry. Her eyes came back to Stark.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: They didn't look angry. Stark said, there's something else. Conan,
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: the conan that used to be before Falga. But Dag's Conan. Yeah,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: why did he betray his people? Ron studied him, her strange,
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: pale lips curved, her sharp white teeth glistening wickedly with
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: barbed humor. Then she turned to but Dag. But Dag
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: was still standing like a carved image, but her smooth
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: muscles were rigid with tension, and her eyes were not
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: the eyes of an image. Conan Or Stark said, Ron,
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: she's still be dyck, isn't she all right? I'll tell
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: you Conan betrayed his people because I put it into
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: his mind to do it. He fought me. He made
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: a good fight of it, but he wasn't quite as
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: tough as you are, Stark. There was a silence for
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: the first time since entering the room. Hugh Stark looked
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: at but Deeg. After a moment, she sighed and lifted
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: her chin and smiled a deep, faint smile. The guards
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: walked out beside her, but she was more erect and
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: lighter of step than either of them. Well, said Ron
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: when they were gone. And what about you, Hugh Stark
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: called Conan. Have I any choice? I always keep my bargains.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: Then give me my dough and let me clear the
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: hell out of here. Sure that's what you want, That's
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: what I want. You could stay a while, you know,
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: with you, Ron lifted her frosty white shoulders. I'm not
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: promising half my kingdom or even part of it. But
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: you might be amused. I got no sense of humor.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: Don't you even want to see what happens to chrome do?
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: Start got up, he said savagely, The hell with crom
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: Do and but dag and be dag. He stopped, then
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: fixed Ron with uncompromising yellow eyes. No, not be dag.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: What are you going to do to her? Nothing? Don't
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: give me that, I say again, nothing. Whatever is done
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: her own people will do. What do you mean? I
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: mean that little dagger in the sheath will be rested,
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: cared for, and fattened for a few days. Then I
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: shall take her aboard my own ship and join the
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: fleet before crom Do. But deck will be made quite
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: comfortable at the masthead, where her people can see her. Plainly,
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: she will stay there until the rock surrenders. It depends
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: on her own people how long she stays. She'll be
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: given water, not much, but enough. Stark stared at her.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: He stared at her a long time. Then he spat
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: deliberately on the floor and said, in a perfectly flat voice,
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: how soon can I get out of here? Ron laughed
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: a small casual chuckle. Humans She said are so damned queer,
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: I don't think I'll ever understand them. She reached out
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: and struck a gong that stood in a carved frame
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: beside the couch. The soft, deep shimmering note had a
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: sad quality of nostalgia. Ron lay back against the silken
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: cushions and sighed goodbye Hugh Stark a pause, then re
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: dreadfully goodbye, Conan. They had made good time along the
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: rim of the Red Sea. One of Ron's galleys had
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: taken them to the edge of the Southern Ocean and
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: left them on a narrow shingle beach under the cliffs.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: From there they had climbed to the rim rock and
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: gone on foot. Hugh Stark called Conan and four of
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: Ron's arrogant shining men. They were supposed to be guide
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: and escort. They were courteous, and they kept pace uncomplainingly,
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: though Stark marched as though the devil were pricking his heels.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: They were armed, and Stark was not. Sometimes, very faintly,
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: Stark was aware of Ron's mind touching his with the
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: velvet delicacy of a cat's paw. Sometimes he started out
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: of his sleep with her image sharp in his mind,
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: her lips touched with a mocking, secret smile. He didn't
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: like that, he didn't like it at all. But he
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: liked even less the picture that staved with him waking
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: or sleeping. The picture he wouldn't look at the picture
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: of a tall woman with hair like loose fire on
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: her neck, walking on light proud feet between her guards.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: She'll be given water, Rand said, not much, but enough.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: Stark gripped the solid squareness of the box that held
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: his million credits and set the miles reeling backward from
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: under his sandals. On the fifth night, one of Ron's
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: men spoke quietly across the campfire. Tomorrow, he said, we'll
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: reach the pass. Stark got up and went away by
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: himself to the edge of the rim rock that fell
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: sheer to the burning sea. He sat down. The red
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: fog wrapped him like a mist of blood. He thought
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: of the blood on but Egg's breast the first time
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: he saw her. The thought of the blood on his
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: knife crusted and dried. He thought of the blood poured
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: rank and smoking into the gutters of crom Dow. The
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: fog has to be red, he thought of all the
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: goddamn colors in the universe. It has to be red, red,
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: like Bedeck's hair. He held out his hands and looked
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: at them, because he could still feel the silk and
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: warmth of that hair against his skin. There was nothing
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: there now but the old white scars of another man's battles.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: He set his fists against his temples and wished for
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: his old body back again, the little, stunted abortion that
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: had clawed and scratched its way to survival through sheer
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: force of mind, a most damnably tough mind. Ron had said, Yeah,
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: it had to be tough, But a mind was a mind.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: It didn't have emotions. It just figured out something coldly
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: and then went ahead and never questioned, And it controlled
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: the body utterly, because the body was the only worthless
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: machinery that carried the mind around. Worthless. Yeah, the few
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: women he'd ever looked at had told him that, and
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: he hadn't even minded much. The old body hadn't given
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: him any trouble. He was having trouble now, Start got
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: up and walked. Tomorrow we reached the pass. Tomorrow we
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: go away from the Red Sea. There are nine planets,
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: and the whole damp belt. There are women on all
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: of them all shapes, colors, and sizes, human, semi human,
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: and god knows what. With a million credits, a guy
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: could buy half of them, and with Conan's body he
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: could buy the rest. What's a woman anyway? Only a water?
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: She'll be given water, not much, but enough. Conan reached
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: out and took hold of a spire of rock, and
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: his mussels stood out like knotted ropes. O God, he whispered,
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: what's the matter with me? Love? It wasn't God who answered,
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: It was Ron. He saw her plainly in his mind,
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: heard her voice like a silver bell. Conan was a man,
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: Hugh Stark. He was whole body and heart and brain.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: He knew how to love and with him. It wasn't women,
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: but one woman, and her name was butdeg I broke him,
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: But it wasn't easy. I can't break you. Stark stood
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: for a long long time. He did not move, except
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: that he trembled. Then he took his belt from the
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: box containing his million credits and threw it out as
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: far as he could over the cliff edge. The red
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: mist swallowed it up. He did not hear it strike
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: the surface of the sea. Perhaps in that sea there
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: was no splashing he did not wait to find out.
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: He turned back along the rim rock to a place
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: where he remembered a cleft or chimney leading down, and
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: the four shining men who wore Ron's harness came silently
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: out of the heavy, luminous night and wringed him in
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: Their sword points caught sharp red glimmers from the sky.
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: Stark had nothing on him, but it killed in sandals
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: and a cloak of tight woven spider silk that shed
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: the rain. Ron sent you, he said. The men nodded
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: to kill me again. They nodded. The blood drained out
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: of Stark's face, leaving it gray and stony under the bronze.
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: His hand went to his throat over the gold fastening
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: of his cloak. The four men closed in like dancers.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: Stark loosened his cloak and swung it like a whip
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: across their faces. It confused them for a second, for
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: heartbeat no more, but long enough. Stark left two of
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: them to tangle their blades in the heavy fabric and
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: leaped side. A sharp edge slipped and turned along his ribs,
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: and then he reached in low and caught a man
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: around the ankles and used the thrashing body for a flail.
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: The body was strangely light, as though the bones in
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: it were no more than rigid membrane, like a fish.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: If he had stayed to fight, they would have finished
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: him in seconds. They were fighting men and quick. But
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: Stark didn't stay. He gained his moment's grace and used it.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: They were hard on his heels, their points all but
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: pricking his back as he ran. But he made it
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: along the rim rock, out along a narrow tongue that
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: jutted over the sea, and then outward, far outward, into
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: red fog and dim fire that rolled around his plummeting body.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: Oh god, he thought, if I guessed wrong and there
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: is a beach, the breath tore out of his lungs,
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: his ears cracked, went dead. He he held his arms
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: out beyond his head, the thumbs locked together, his neck
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: braced forward against the terrific upward push. He struck the
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: surface of the sea. There was no splash, dim coiling
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: fire that drifted with infinite laziness around him, caressing his
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: body with slow, tingling sparks, a feeling of lightness, as
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: though his flesh had become one with the drifting fire.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: A sense of suffocation that had no basis, in fact,
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: gave way gradually to a strange exhilaration. There was no
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: shock of impact, no crushing pressure, merely a cushioning softness,
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: like dropping into a bed of compressed air. Stark felled himself,
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: turning end over end pinwheel fashion, and then that stopped,
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: so that he sank quietly and without haste, to the bottom,
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: or rather into the crystalline upper reaches of what seemed
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: to be a forest. He could see a spreading away
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: along the downward sloping floor of the ocean, into the
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: vague red shadows of distance, Slender fantastic trunks upholding a
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: maze of delicate, shining branches, without leaves or fruit. They
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: were like trees, exquisitely molded from ice, transparent, holding the lambent,
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: shifting fire of the strange sea. Stark didn't think they were,
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: or ever had been, alive. More like coral, he thought,
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: or some vagary of mineral deposit, beautiful though, like something
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: you'd see in a dream. Beautiful, silent, and somehow deadly.
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: He couldn't explain that feeling of deadliness. Nothing moved in
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: the red drifts between the trunks, there was nothing about
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: the trees themselves. It was just something he sensed. He
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: began to move among the upper branches, following the downward
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: drop of the slope. He found that he could swim
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: quite easily, or perhaps it was more like flying. The
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: dense gas buoyed him up, almost balancing the weight of
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: his body, so that it was easy to swoop along,
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: catching a crystal branch and using it as a lever
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: to throw himself forward to the next one. He went
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: deeper and deeper into the heart of the forbidden Southern Ocean.
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: Nothing stirred. The fairy forest stretched limitless ahead, and Stark
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: was afraid. Ron came into his mind abruptly, her face,
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: clearly outlined, was full of mockery. I'm going to watch
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: you die, you, Stark called Conan. But before you die,
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: I'll show you something. Look. Her face dimmed, and in
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: its place was chromed dew, rising bleak into the red fog.
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: The long ships broken and sunk in the harbor, and
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: Ron's fleet around it in a shining circle. One ship,
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: in part particular, the flagship the vision in Stark's mind,
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: rushed toward it, narrowed down to the masthead platform to
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: the woman who stood there, naked, erect, her body lashed
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: tight with thin cruel cords, a woman with red hair
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: blowing in the slow wind. The blue eyes that looked
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: straight ahead like a falcon's at crom dew Ron's laughter
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: ran across the picture and blurred it like a ripple
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: of ice cold water. You'd have done better, she said,
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: to take the clean steel when I offered it to you.
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: She was gone, and Stark's mind was empty and cold
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: as the mind of a corpse. He found that he
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: was standing still, clinging to a branch, his face upturned,
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: as though by some blind instinct, his sight blurred. He
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: had never cried before in all his life, or prayed.
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: There was no such thing as time. Down there, in
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: the smoky shadows of the sea bottom. It might have
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: been minutes or hours later that Ugh Stark discovered he
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: was being hunted. There were three of them, slipping easily
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: among the shining branches. They were pale, golden, almost phosphorescent,
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: about the size of large hounds. Their eyes were huge,
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: jewel like in their slim, sharp faces. They possessed four
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: members that might have been legs and arms retracted now
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: against their arrowing bodies. Golden membranes spread winglike from head
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: to flank, and they moved like wings, balancing expertly the
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: thrust of the flat powerful tails. They could have closed
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: in on him easily, but they didn't seem to be
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: in any hurry. Stark had sense enough not to wear
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: himself out trying to get away. He kept on going
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: watching them. He discovered that the crystal branches could be broken,
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: and he selected him self won with a sharp forked tip,
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: shoving it swordwise under his belt. He didn't suppose it
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: would do much good, but it made him feel better.
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: He wondered why the things didn't jump him and get
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: it over with. They looked hungry enough the way they
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: were showing him their teeth, but they kept about the
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: same distance away, in a sort of crescent formation, and
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: every so often the ones on the outside would make
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: a tentative dart at him, then fall back as he
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: swerved away. It wasn't like being hunted so much. As
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: Stark's eyes narrowed, he began suddenly to feel much more
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: afraid than he had before, and he wouldn't have believed
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: that possible. The things weren't hunting him at all. They
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: were hurting him. There was nothing he could do about it.
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: He tried stopping, and they swooped in and snapped at him,
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: working expertly together, so that while he was trying to
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: stab one of them with his clumsy weapon, the others
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: were whirring his heels like sheep dogs at a recalcitrant weather.
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: Stark like the weather, bowed to the inevitable and went
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: where he was driven. The golden hounds showed their teeth
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: in animal laughter and sniffed hungrily at the thread of
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: blood he left behind him in the slow red coils
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: of fire. After a while, he heard music. It seemed
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: to be some sort of harp with a strange quality
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: of vibration in the notes. It wasn't like anything he'd
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: ever heard before. Perhaps the gas of which the sea
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: was composed was an extraordinarily good conductor of sound, with
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: a property of diffusion that made the music seem to
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: come from everywhere at once, softly at first, like something
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: touched upon a dream, and then as he drew closer
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: to the source, swelling into a racing, rippling flood of
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: melody that wrapped itself around his nerves with a demoniac
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: shiver of ecstasy. The golden hounds began to fret with excitement,
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: spreading their shining wings, driving him impatiently faster through the
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: crystal branches. Star could feel the vibration growing in him,
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: the very fibers of his muscles shuddering in sympathy with
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: the unearthly harp. He guessed there was a lot of
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: the music he couldn't hear, too high, too low for
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: his ears to register, but he could feel it. He
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: began to go faster, not because of the hounds, but
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: because he wanted to. The deep quivering in his flesh
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: excited him. He began to breathe harder, partly because of
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: increased exertion, and some chemical quality of the mixture he
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: breathed made him slightly drunk. The throaming harp song stoked
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: and stung him, waking a deeper, darker music. And suddenly
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: he saw but Dug clearly, half veiled and misty, and
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: the candle light of fowlins done smooth, curving bronze, her
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: hair loose fire about her throat. A great stab of
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: agony went through him. He called her name once, and
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: the harp song swept it up into way, And then
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: suddenly there was no music anymore, and no forest, and
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: nothing but cold embers. In Stark's heart. He could see
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: everything quite clearly in the time it took him to
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: float from the top of the last tree to the
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: floor of the plane. He had no idea how long
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: a time that was. It didn't matter. It was one
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: of those moments when time doesn't have any meaning. The
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: rim of the forest fell away in a long curve
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: that melted glisteningly into the spark shot sea. From it,
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: the plane stretched out a level, glassy floor of black obsidian,
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: the spew of some long dead volcano, or was it dead?
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: It seemed to that the light here was redder, more vital,
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: as though he were close to the source from which
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: it sprang. As he looked farther over the plain, the
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: light seemed to coalesce into a shimmering curtain that wavered
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: like the heat veils that danced along the Mercurion twilight
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: belt at high noon. For one brief instant he glimpsed
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: a picture on the curtain, a city, black shining fantastically turreted,
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: the gigantic reflection of a titan's dream. Then it was gone,
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: and the immediate menace of the foreground took all of
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: Stark's attention. He saw the flock herded by more of
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: the golden hounds, and he saw the shepherd with the
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: harp hilled silent between his hands. The flock moved sluggishly, phosphorescently,
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: one hundred two hundred, silent, limping, floating warriors, drifting down
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: the red dimness in pears, singly or in pallid clusters.
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: They came. The hounds winged silently, leisurely around them, channeling
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: them in ties that sluice toward the fantastic Ebon city.
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: The shepherd stood a crop of obsidian. Turning his sharp,
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: pale face, his sharp awkuamarine eyes found Stark. His silvery
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: hand leapt, beckoning over hard threads, striking them a blow.
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: Reverberations ran out, seized Stark, shook him. He dropped his
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: crystal dagger. Hot screens of fire exploded in his eyes.
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: Bubbles whirled and danced in his ear drums. He lost
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: all muscular control. His dark head fell forward against the
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: thick blackness of hair on his chest. His golden eyes
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: dissolved into weak, inane yellow, and his mouth loosened. He
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: wanted to fight, but it was useless us. This shepherd
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: was one of the sea people he had come to see,
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: and one way or another he would see him. Dark
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: blood filled his aching eyes. He felt himself led, nudged,
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: forced first this way, then that a golden hound slipped by,
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: gave him a pressure which roiled him over into a
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: current of sea blood. It ran down past where the
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: shepherd stood with only a harp for a weapon. Stark
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: wondered dimly whether these other warriors in the flock drifting
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: were dead or alive. Like himself. He had another surprise coming.
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: They were all Ron's men, men of Falga, silver men
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: with burning green hair, Ron's men. One of them, a
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: huge warrior colored like powdered salt, wandered aimlessly by on
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: another tide, his green eyes dull. He looked dead. What
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: business had the sea people with the dead warriors of Falga?
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: Why the hounds in the shepherd's harp questions eddied like
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: lifted silled in Starks tired hanging head, eddied and settled flat.
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: Stark joined the pilgrimage. The hounds, with deaf flickerings of wings,
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: ushered him into the midst of the flock bodies brushed
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: against him, cold bodies. He wanted to cry out, the
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: cords of his neck constricted. In his mind, the cry
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: went forward, are you alive? Men of Falga? No answer
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: but the drift of scarred, pale bodies. The eyes in
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: them knew nothing. They had forgotten Falga. They had forgotten Ron,
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: for whom they had lifted blade, Their tongues lolling in mouths,
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: asked nothing but sleep. They were getting it. A hundred
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: two hundred strong. They made a strange human river, slipping
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: towards or the gigantic city wall. Stark called Conan and
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: his bitter enemies going together. From the corners of his eyes,
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: Stark saw the shepherd move. The shepherd was like Ron
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: and her people, who had years ago abandoned the sea
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: to live on land. The shepherd seemed colder, more fish like,
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: though there were small translucent webs between the thin fingers
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: and spanning the long toed feet. Thin scarl like gills
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: in the shadow of his tapered chin lifted and sealed
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: in the current, eating, taking sustenance from the blood colored sea.
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: The harp spoke, and the golden hounds obeyed. The harp
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: spoke and the bodies twisted uneasily as in a troubled sleep.
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: A triple cord of it came straight at Stark. His
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: fingers clenched, And the dead shall walk again, another ironic
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: ripple of music, and Ron's men will rise again, this
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: time against her. Stark had time to feel a brief
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: bewildered shivering before the current hurled him forward, clamoring drunkenly, witlessly.
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: All about him, the dead, muscleless warriors of Valga tried
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: to crush past him, all of them at once. Long ago,
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: some vast sea titan had dreamed of avenue struck from
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: black stone, each stone the size of three men tall.
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: There had been a dream of walls going up and
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: up until it dissolved into scarlet mist. There had been
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: another dream of sea gardens, in which fish hung like
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: erotic flowers on tendrils of sensitive film tissue. Whole beds
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: of fish clung to garden base like colonies of flowers,
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: aglow with sunlight, and on occasion a black amoebic presence
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: filtered by playing the gardener weeding out an amber flower here,
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: an amethystan blue there. And the sea titan had dreamed
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: of endless balustrades and battlements of windowless turrets, where creatures
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: swayed like radium skin phantoms, carrying their green plumes of
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: hair in their lifted palms, and looked down with curious,
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: insolent eyes from on high. Women with shimmering bodies, like
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: some incredible coral harvested and kept high over these blackstone streets,
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: each in its archway. Stark was alone. Falga's warriors had
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: gone off along a dim subterranean vent, vanished now. The
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: faint beckoning of Harp and the golden hounds behind him
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: turned him down a passage that opened out into a
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: large circular stone room, one end of which opened out
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: into a hall. Around the eben ceiling, slender schools of
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: fish swham. It was their bright effulgence that gave light
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: to the room. They had been there, breeding, eating, dying
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: a thousand years, giving light to the place, and they
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: would be there, breeding and dying a thousand more. The
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: harp faded until it was only a murmur. Stark found
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: his feet, strength returned to him. He was able to
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: see the man in the center of the room well
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: too well. The man hung in the fire tide, chains
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: of rot bronze held his thin, fleshless ankles so he
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: couldn't escape. His body desired it. It floated up. It
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: had been dead a long time. It was gaseous with decomposition,
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: and it wanted to rise to the surface of the
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: Red Sea. The chains prevented this. Its arms weaved like
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: white scarves before a sunken white face. Black hair trembled
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: on end end of chapter three, Chapter four of The
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: Red Mist by Lee Brackett and Ray Bradbury. This LibriVox
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. He was one of
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: Fallowen's men, one of the rovers, one of those who
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: had gone down at Falga because of Conan. His name
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: was Geel. Stark remembered the part of him that was
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: Conan remembered the name. The dead lips moved Conan. What
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: luck this is, Conan? I make you welcome. The words
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: were cruel, the lips around them loose and dead. It
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: seemed as stark and anger and embittered wrath lay deep
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: in those hollow eyes. The lips twitched again. I went
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: down at Falga for you and Ron Conan, remember, part
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: of Stark remembered and twisted in agony. We're all here Conan,
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: all of us, Cleve and Mount and Braun and Aesa.
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: Remember Acer who could shape metal over his spine, prying
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: it with his fingers. Acer's hair big as a sea monster,
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: waiting in a niche, cold and loose as string. The
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 1: sea shepherds collected us, collected us for a purpose of irony.
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: Look the boneless fingers hung out as in a wind pointing.
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: Stark turned slowly, and his heart pounded an uneven, shattering
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: drum beat. His jaw clenched, and his eyes blurred. That
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: part of him that was Conan cried out. Conan was
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: so much of him, and he so much of Conan,
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: it was impossible for a cleavage. They'd grown together, like
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: pearl material around sand specule. Later on, layer Stark cried out.
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: In the hall which this circular room overlooked, stood one
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: thousand men in lines of fifty across, shouldered to shoulder.
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: The men of Cromdu stared unseeingly up at Stark. Here
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: and there a face became shockingly familiar. Old memory cried
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: their names, Braun, Cleve, mont Aesore. The collected decomposition of
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: their bodily fluids raised them, drifted them above the flaggings.
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: Each of them was chained like Gil. Gil whispered, we
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: have made a union with the men of Falga. Stark
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: pulled back Falga. In death, all men are equals. He
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: took his time with it. He was in no hurry.
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: Dead bodies under sea are never in a hurry. They
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: sort of bomp and dripped, and by their time the
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: dead serve those who give them a semblance of life.
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: Tomorrow we march against Chrome du You're crazy. Chrome do
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: is your home. It is the place of Buttig and
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: Fowlin and interrupted the hanging corpse quietly. Conan eh, he laughed.
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: A crystal dribble of bubbles ran up from the slack mouth,
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: especially Conan Conan, who sank us at Falga. Stark moved swiftly.
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: Nobody stopped him. He had the corpse's short blade in
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: an instant. Gil's chest made a cold, silent sheath for it.
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: The blade went in like a fork through butter coldly.
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: Without noticing this, Gil's voice spoke out, stab me, cut me.
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 1: You can't kill me any debtor, make sections of me.
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: Play butcher a flank, a hand, a heart, And while
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: you're at it, I'll tell you the plan. Snarling, Stark
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: seized the blade out again with blind violence. He gave
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: sharp blow after blow at the body, cursing bitterly, and
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: the body took each blow, rocking in the red tide
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: a little, and said, with a matter of fact tone,
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: will march out of the sea to chrome DU's gates.
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: Ramna and the others looking down recognizing us, we'll have
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: the gates thrown wide to welcome us. The head tilted lazily,
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: the lips peeled wide and folded down languidly over the words.
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: Think of the elation Conan, the moment when Braun and
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: Mant and Aesore and I and yourself, yes, even yourself
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: Conan returned to Crome do Stark saw it vividly, saw
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: it like a tapestry woven for him. He stepped back,
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: gasping for breath, his nostrils flaring, seeing what is blade
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: had done to Gial's body, and seeing the great stone
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: gates of Cromdu crashing open. The deliberation, the happiness, the
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: elation to Fowlin and Romna, to see old friends returned
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: Old Rover's long thought dead, alive again come to help.
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: It made a picture with great deliberation, Stark struck flat
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: across before him. Gile's head, severed from its lazy body,
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: began with infinite tiredness to float toward the ceiling. As
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: it traveled upward, now facing now bobbling the back of
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: his skull towards Stark, it finished its nightmare, speaking and
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: then once inside the gates, what then, Conan? Can you guess?
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: Can you guess? What will do? Conan? Stark stared at nothingness,
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: the sword trembling in his fist. From far away, he
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: heard Gil's voice. We will kill Fowlin in his hall.
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: He will die with surprised lips. Romna's harp will lie
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: in his disembowel's stomach. His heart, with its last pulsings,
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: will sound the strings, and as for Bedeg, Stark tried
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: to push the thoughts away. Raging and helpless. Gill's body
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: was no longer anything to look at. He had done
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: all he could to it. Stark's face was bleached white
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 1: and scraped down to the insane bone ofvit. You'd kill
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: your own people. Gill's separated head lingered at the ceiling,
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: light fish illuminating its ghastly features. Our people, but we
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: have no people. We're another race now, the dead. We
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: do the biddings of the sea shepherds. Stark looked out
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: into the hall. Then he looked at the circular wall. Okay,
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: he said, without tone in his voice, come out wherever
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: you're hiding, and using this voice throwing act, come on
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: out and talk straight. In answer, an entire section of
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: Ebon Stone's fell back on silent hinge work. Stark saw
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: a long, slender, black marble table. Six people sat behind
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: it in carbon midnight thrones. They were all men naked
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: except for film like garments about their loins. They looked
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: at Stark with no particular hatred or curiosity. One of
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: them cradled a harp. It was the shepherd who drawn
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: Stark through the gate amusedly. His web fingers lay on
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: the strings now and then, bringing out a clear sound
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 1: from one of the two hundred strands. The shepherd stopped
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: Stark's rushed forward with a cry of that harp. The
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: blade in his hand was red hot. He dropped it.
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: The shepherd put a head on the story. And then
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: and then we will march Ron's dead warriors all the
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: way to Falga. There Ron's people seeing the warriors will
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: be overjoyed, hysterical to find their friends and relatives returned.
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: They too will fling wide Falga's defenses, and death will
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: walk in, disguised as resurrection. Stark nodded slowly, wiping his
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: hand across his cheek. Back on Earth, we call that psychology,
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: good psychology. But will a fool run? Ron will be
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: with her ships at crom Do while she's gone. The
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 1: innocent population will let in their lost warriors gladly. The
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: shepherd had amused green eyes. He looked like a youth
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: of some seventeen years, deceptively young. If Stark guessed right,
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: the youth was near to two centuries old. That's how
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 1: you lived and looked when you were under the Red Sea.
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 1: Something about the emanations of it kept part of you young.
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 1: Stark litted his yellow hawk eyes thoughtfully. You've got all aces.
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: You'll win. But what's crom do to you? Why not
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: just Ron? She's one of you. You hate her more
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: than you do the rovers. Her ancestors came up on Land.
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: You never got over hating them for that, The shepherd
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: shrugged toward Chrome. Do we have little actual hatred, except
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: that they are by nature Land men. Even if they
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: do rove by boat and pillagers. One day they might
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: try their luck on the sunken devices of the city.
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: Start put a hand out. We're fighting Ron too. Don't
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: forget we're on your side, whereas we are on No
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: one's retorted the green haired youth except our own. Welcome
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 1: to the army which will attack chromb do me, by
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: the gods over my dead body, That said the youth, amusedly,
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: is what we intend. We've worked many years, you see,
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: to perfect the plan. We're not much good out on land.
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 1: We need bodies that could do the work for us.
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 1: So every time Fowlin lost a ship or Ron lost
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: a ship, we were there with our golden hounds, waiting, collecting, saving,
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: waiting until we had enough of each side's warriors. They'll
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: do the fighting for us. Oh not for long, of course.
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: The source energy will give them a semblance of life,
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: a momentary electrical ability of walk and combat. But once
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 1: out of water, they'll last only half an hour. But
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 1: that should be time enough. Once the gates of Cromdew
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: and Falga are open, Stark said, Ron will find some
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 1: way around you get her first attack Cromdew. The following day,
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: the youth deliberated, you're stalling, but their sense in it
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: Ron is most important. We'll get Falga first. Then you'll
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: have a bit of time in which to raise false hopes.
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: Stark began to get sick again. The room swam very quietly,
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: very easily. Ron came into his mind again. He felt
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 1: her glide in, like the merest touch of a sea
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: fern weaving in a tidepool. He closed his mind down,
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: but not before she snatched at a shred of thought.
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: Her aquamarine eyes reflected desire and inquiry. Hugh Stark, you're
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: with the sea people. Her voice was soft. He shook
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: his head. Tell me, Hugh Stark, how are you plodding
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 1: against foga? He said nothing, He thought nothing. He shut
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: his eyes. Her fingernails glittered, raking at his mind. Tell
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: me his thoughts rolled tightly into a metal sphere which
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: nothing could dent Ron laughed unpleasantly and leaned forward until
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: she filled every dark horizon of his skull with her
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 1: shimmering body. All right, I gave you Conan's body, Now
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 1: I'll take it away. She struck him a combined blow
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: of her eyes, her lips, her bone, sharp teeth. Go
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: back to your old body. Go back to your old body,
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: Hugh Stark. She hissed, go back. Leave Conan to his idiocy,
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 1: Go back to your old body. Fear had him. He
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 1: fell down on his face, quivering and jerking. You could
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: fight a man with a sword, but how could you
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: fight this thing in your brain. He began to suck
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: sobbing breaths through his lips. He was screaming. He could
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: not hear himself. Her voice rushed in from the dim
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: outer red universe, destroying him. Hugh Stark, go back to
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: your old body. His old body was dead, and she
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: was sending him back into it. Part of him shot
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: endwise through red fog. He lay on a mountain plateau,
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 1: overlooking the harbor of Falga. Red fog coiled and snaked
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: round him. Flames dived eerily down at his steering blind eyes.
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: His old body held him Putrefaction stuffed his nostrils. The
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: flesh sagged and slipped greasily on his loosened structure. He
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: fell small again and ugly. Flamebirds nibbled, picking, choosing between
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: his ribs. Pain gorged him. Cold blackness, nothingness filled him
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 1: back in his old body. Forever. He didn't want that
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: the plateau, the red fog vanished, the flamebirds too. He
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: lay once more on the floor of the sea shepherds, struggling.
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: That was just a start. Ron told him next time,
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: I'll leave you up there on the plateau in that body. Now,
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: will you tell me the plans of the sea people
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: and go on living in conan? He's yours. If you tell,
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: she smirked, you don't don't want to be dead. Stark
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 1: tried to reason it out. Anyway he turned was the
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: wrong way. He grunted out a breath. If I tell,
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: he'll still kill, butdeck her life in exchange for what
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: you know, Hugh Stark. Her answer was too swift. It
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 1: had the sound of treachery. Stark did not believe he
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: would die. That would solve it. Then, at least Ron
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 1: would die when the sea people carried out their strategy
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 1: that much revenge, at least damn it. Then he got
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: the idea. He coughed out a laugh, raised his weak
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: head to look at the startled sea shepherd. His little
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 1: dialogue with Ron had taken about ten seconds, actually, but
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 1: it had seemed a century. The Sea Shepherd stepped forward.
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: Stark tried to get to his feet. Got a proposition
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: for you, you with a harp. Ron's inside me. Now,
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: unless you guarantee crom Do and bututic safety, I'll tell
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: her some things she might want to be in. On
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 1: the sea Shepherd drew a knife. Stark shook his head coldly,
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: put it away. Even if you get me, I'll give
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: the whole damn strategy to Ron. The shepherd dropped his hand.
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 1: He was no fool. Ron tore at Stark's brain. Tell me,
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 1: tell me their plan. He felt like a guy in
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 1: a revolving door. Stark got the seamen in focus. He
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: saw that they were afraid, now, doubtful and nervous. I'll
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 1: be dead in a minute, said Stark. Promise me the
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: safety of crom Do, and I'll die without telling Ron
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 1: a thing. The Sea Shepherd hesitated, then raised his palm upward.
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: I promise, he said, crom Do will go untouched Stark's
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 1: He let his head fall forward until it hit the floor.
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: Then he rolled over, put his hands over his eyes.
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 1: It's a deal. Go give Ron hell for me, Will
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: you boys? Give her hell? As he drifted into mine darkness,
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: Ron waited for him feebly. He told her. Okay, duchess,
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: you'd kill me even if I told you the idea.
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 1: I'm ready try your god off list to shove me
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: back into that sninking body of mine. I'll fight you
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 1: all the way there, Ron screamed. It was a pretty
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: frustrated scream. Then the pains began. She did a lot
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 1: of work on his mind. In the next minute. The
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: part of him that was conan held on like a clam,
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 1: holding to its precious contents. The odor of putrid flesh returned,
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: the blood myst returned. The flame birds fell down at
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: him in spirals of sparks and blistering smoke. To winnow
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: his naked ribs, Stark spoke one last word before the
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: blackness took him. Be dag. He never expected to awaken again.
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: He awoke just the same. There was a red sea
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 1: all around him. He lay on some kind of stone bed,
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 1: and the young sea shepherd sat beside him, looking down
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 1: at him, smiling delicately. Stark did not dare move for
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 1: a while. He was afraid his head might fall off
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 1: and whirl away like a big fish, using its ears
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: as propellers. Lord, he muttered, barely turning his head. The
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 1: sea creature stirred you one you fought Ron and one.
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: Stark groaned. I feel like something passed through a wildcat's intestines.
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: She's gone. Ron's gone, he laughed. That makes me sad.
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 1: Somebody cheer me up. Ron One's gone, he felt, of
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: his big, flat muscled body. She was bluffing, trying to
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: drive me batty. She knew she couldn't really tuck me
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: back into that carcass, but she didn't want me to know.
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 1: It was like a baby's nightmare before it's born. Or
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: maybe you haven't got a memory like me. He rolled over, stretching.
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 1: She won't ever get in my head again. I've locked
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: the gate and swallowed the key. His eyes dilated. What's
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 1: your name, Lintel, said the man with the harp. You
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: didn't tell Ron our strategy. What do you think? Linnel
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 1: smiled sincerely. I think I like you, man of crom Do.
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 1: I think I like your hatred for Ron. I think
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: I like the way you handled the entire matter. Wanted
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 1: to kill Ron and save crom Do, and being so
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 1: willing to die to accomplish either. That's a lot of thinking. Yeah,
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: and what about that promise you made? It will be
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 1: kept Stark gave him a hand. Littel, you're okay. If
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: I ever get back to Earth, so help me. I'll
• 1:57:11
  Speaker 1: never baite a hook again and drop it in the sea.
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 1: It was lost to Lintel. Stark forgot it and went
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: on laughing. There was an edge of hysteria to it, relief.
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 1: You got booted around for days. People milled in and
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: out of your mind like it was a bargain basement
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 1: counter pine over the threads and convolutions, yelling and fighting.
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 1: The woman you loved was starved on a ship masthead.
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: And as a climax, a lady with green eyes tried
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 1: to make you a feeling for an ancient, mangled body.
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 1: And now you had an ally and you couldn't believe it.
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 1: He laughed in little starts and stops, his eyes shut.
• 1:57:55
  Speaker 1: Will you let me take care of ron when the
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 1: time comes? His fingers groped hungrily upward, closed on an
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 1: imaginary figure of her, pressed, tightened, choked, Lindel said, she's yours.
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 1: I'd like the pleasure, but you have as much, if
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 1: not more, of a revenge to take. Come along, we
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 1: start now. You've been asleep for one entire period. Stark
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: led himself down gingerly. He didn't want to break a
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 1: leg off. He felt if someone touched him he might disintegrate.
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 1: He managed to let the tide handle him do all
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 1: the work. He swam carefully after lynel down three passageways,
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 1: where an occasional silver inhabitant of the city slid by
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 1: drifting below them in a vast square hall, each gravitating
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 1: but imprisoned by leg shackles. The warriors of Foga looked
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 1: up with pale, cold eyes at Stark and Linel. Occasional
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 1: discharges of lightfish from interstices in the walls past umanous
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: fleeting glows over the warriors. The light fish flirted briefly
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 1: in a long, shining rope that tied knots around the
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 1: dead faces, and as quickly untied them. Then the light
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 1: fish pulsed away, and the red color of the sea
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 1: took over. Bathed in wine, thought Stark, without humor. He
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 1: leaned forward. Men of Falga. Linnel plucked a series of
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: harp threads. I a deep suggestion of sound issued from
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 1: a thousand dead lips. We go to sack Ron citadel
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 1: Ron came the muffled thunder of voices at the sound
• 1:59:39
  Speaker 1: of another tune, the golden hounds appeared. They touched the chains.
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 1: The men of Falga released, danced through the Red Sea
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 1: substance siphoned into a valve mouth. They were drawn out
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 1: into a great volcanic courtyard. Stark went close after he
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 1: started down into a black ravine, at the bottom of
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 1: which was a blazing caldera. This was the source life
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 1: of the Red Sea. Here it had begun a millennium ago.
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 1: Here the savage cyclones of sparks and fire energy builched up,
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 1: shaking titanic black garden walls, causing currents and whirlpools that
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 1: threatened to suck you forward and shoot you violently up
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 1: to the surface in canulus of force, thrust in capillaries
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 1: of ignited mist, in shoots of color that threatened to cremate,
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 1: but only exhilarated you, gave you a seething rebirth. He
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 1: braced his legs and fought the suction. An unbelievable sinew
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 1: of fire sprang up from out of the ravine, crackling
• 2:00:45
  Speaker 1: and roaring. The men of Faluga did not fight the attraction.
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 1: They moved forward in their silence, and hung over the incandescence.
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 1: The vitality of the source grew upward in them. It
• 2:00:59
  Speaker 1: seemed to touch their their sandaled toes first, and then,
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 1: by a process of shining osmosis, climb up the limbs,
• 2:01:06
  Speaker 1: into the loins, into the vitals, delineating their strong bone structure.
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 1: As mercury delineates the glass thermometer. With the rise of temperature,
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 1: the bones flickered like carved, polished ivory through the momentarily
• 2:01:20
  Speaker 1: film like flesh. The ribs of a thousand men expanded
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 1: like silvered spider legs clinched, then expanded again. Their spines straightened,
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 1: their shoulders flattened back. Their eyes, the last to take
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 1: the fire, were now ignited and glowed like candles in
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 1: refurbished sepulchers. The chins snapped up, the entire outer skins
• 2:01:45
  Speaker 1: of their bodies broke into silver brilliants. Swimming through the
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 1: storm of energy like nightmare figments. Entering cold, they reached
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 1: the far side of the ravine, resembling smelted metal from
• 2:01:57
  Speaker 1: blast furnaces. When the brushed into one another, purple sparks sizzled,
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 1: jumping from head to head, from hand to hand. Linnel
• 2:02:08
  Speaker 1: touched Stark's arm. You're next, No, thank you, afraid, laughed
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 1: the harp shepherd. You're tired. It will give you new life,
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 1: your next. Stark hesitated only a moment. Then he let
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 1: the tide drift him rapidly out. He was afraid, damned, afraid.
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 1: A belch of fire caught him as he arrived in
• 2:02:32
  Speaker 1: the core of the ravine. He was wrapped in layers
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 1: of ecstasy, but Dag pressed against him. It was her
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 1: consuming hair that netted him and branded him. It was
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 1: her warmth that crept up his body, into his chest,
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 1: and into his head. Somebody yeld somewhere in animal delight
• 2:02:53
  Speaker 1: and unbearable passion. Somebody danced and threw out his hands
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 1: and crushed that solar warmth deeper into his huge body.
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 1: Somebody felt all tiredness, oldness fleomed away. A whole new
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 1: feeling of warmth and strength inserted that somebody was Stark
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 1: waiting on the other side of the ravine, where a
• 2:03:15
  Speaker 1: thousand men of Foga what sounded like a thousand harps
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 1: began playing now, And as Stark reached the other side,
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 1: the harps began marching, and the warriors marched with them.
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 1: They were still dead, but you would never know it.
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 1: There were no minds inside those bodies. The bodies were
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 1: being activated from outside, but you would never know it.
• 2:03:40
  Speaker 1: They left the city behind in embering ranks. The soldier
• 2:03:45
  Speaker 1: fighters were led by golden hounds and distant harps to
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 1: a place where a huge intercoastal tide swept by. They
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 1: got on the tide for a free ride. Lintel beside him.
• 2:03:57
  Speaker 1: Using his harp, Stark felled himself sucked down through a
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 1: deep where strange monsters sprawled. They looked at Stark with
• 2:04:05
  Speaker 1: hungry eyes, but the harp wall swept them back. Stark
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 1: glanced about at the men. They don't know what they're doing,
• 2:04:14
  Speaker 1: he thought, going home, to kill their parents and their children,
• 2:04:18
  Speaker 1: to set the flame to Falga, and they don't know it.
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 1: Their alive but dead faces tilted up, always upward, as
• 2:04:27
  Speaker 1: though visions of ron Citadel were there. Ron Stark let
• 2:04:32
  Speaker 1: the warmth simmer in him. He let it cool. Then
• 2:04:36
  Speaker 1: it was cold. Ron hadn't bothered him now for hours.
• 2:04:41
  Speaker 1: Was there a chance she'd read his thought in the
• 2:04:43
  Speaker 1: midst of that frightening nightmare? Did she know of this
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 1: plan for Falga? Was that an explanation for her silence. Now,
• 2:04:52
  Speaker 1: he sent his mind ahead subtly Ron Ron. The only
• 2:04:58
  Speaker 1: answer was the move of silver body through the fiery deeps.
• 2:05:02
  Speaker 1: Just before dawn they broke the surface of the sea.
• 2:05:05
  Speaker 1: Falga drowsed in the red smeared fog silence. Its slave
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 1: streets were empty and dew covered. High up, the first
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 1: light was bathing Ron's gardens and setting her citadel aglow.
• 2:05:19
  Speaker 1: Lintel lay in the shadows beside Stark. They both were smiling,
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 1: half cruel smiles. They had waited long for this. Linel nodded,
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 1: This is the day of the carnival. Fruit, wine and
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 1: love will be offered the returned soldiers of Ron. In
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 1: the streets there'll be dancing. Far Over to the right
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 1: lay a rise of mountain at its blunt peak. Stark
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 1: stared at it intently, rested a body of a little
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 1: scrawny earth man with flame birds clustered on it. He'd
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 1: climb that mountain later, when it was over and there
• 2:05:57
  Speaker 1: was time. What are you searching, asked Linnel. Stark's voice
• 2:06:03
  Speaker 1: was distant. Someone I used to know Filing out of
• 2:06:07
  Speaker 1: the stone quays. Their rustling sandals eroded by time. The
• 2:06:12
  Speaker 1: men stood clean and bright. Stark paced a caged animal
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 1: at their center so his dark body would pass unnoticed.
• 2:06:21
  Speaker 1: They were seen. The cliff guard looked down over the
• 2:06:25
  Speaker 1: dirty slave dwellings from their narrow galleries and set up
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 1: a cry. Hands waved, pointed frostily white. In the dawn,
• 2:06:34
  Speaker 1: more guards loped down the ramps and galleries, meeting, joining
• 2:06:38
  Speaker 1: others and coming on linel in the sea by the
• 2:06:42
  Speaker 1: quay suggested a theme on the harp. The other harps
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 1: took it up. The shuddering music lifted from the water
• 2:06:51
  Speaker 1: with a gentle firmness, set the dead feet marching down
• 2:06:55
  Speaker 1: the quays upward through the narrow, stifling alleys of the
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 1: slaves to meet the guard. Slave people peered out at
• 2:07:03
  Speaker 1: them tiredly from their choked quarters. The passing of warriors
• 2:07:08
  Speaker 1: was old to them, of no significance. These warriors carried
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 1: no weapons. Stark didn't like that part of it. A
• 2:07:17
  Speaker 1: length of chain even he wanted, But this emptiness of
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 1: the hands, his teeth ached from too long a time
• 2:07:25
  Speaker 1: of clenching his jaws tight. The muscles of his arms
• 2:07:28
  Speaker 1: were feverish and nervous. At the edge of the slave community,
• 2:07:33
  Speaker 1: at the cliff base. The guard confronted them, running off
• 2:07:37
  Speaker 1: down the galleries, swords naked, they ran to intercept what
• 2:07:42
  Speaker 1: they took to be an enemy. The guard stopped in
• 2:07:45
  Speaker 1: blank confusion. End of chapter four, Chapter five of Lorali
• 2:07:57
  Speaker 1: of the Red Mist by Lee Brackett and Ray Bradbath.
• 2:08:01
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. A little
• 2:08:05
  Speaker 1: laugh escaped Stark's lips. It was a dream with fog
• 2:08:10
  Speaker 1: over under and in between its parts. It wasn't real
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 1: to the Guard, who couldn't believe it. It wasn't real
• 2:08:18
  Speaker 1: to these dead men either, who were walking around. He
• 2:08:22
  Speaker 1: felt alone. He was the only live one. He didn't
• 2:08:26
  Speaker 1: like walking with dead men. The captain of the Guard
• 2:08:29
  Speaker 1: came down warily, his green eyes suspicious. The suspicion faded,
• 2:08:35
  Speaker 1: his face fell apart. He had lain on his fur
• 2:08:39
  Speaker 1: pelts for months, thinking of his son, who had died
• 2:08:41
  Speaker 1: to defend Falga. Now his son stood before him, alive.
• 2:08:47
  Speaker 1: The captain forgot he was captain. He forgot everything. His
• 2:08:51
  Speaker 1: sandals scraped over stones. You could hear the air go
• 2:08:55
  Speaker 1: out of his lungs and come back in a nom prayer,
• 2:08:59
  Speaker 1: my son in Ron's name. They said you were slain
• 2:09:03
  Speaker 1: by Fowlin's men one hundred darknesses ago, my son. A
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 1: harp tinkled somewhere. The son stepped forward, smiling. They embraced
• 2:09:15
  Speaker 1: The son said nothing. He couldn't speak. It was the
• 2:09:19
  Speaker 1: signal for the others. The whole guard, shocked and surprised,
• 2:09:24
  Speaker 1: put away their swords and sought out old friends, brothers, fathers, uncles, sons.
• 2:09:30
  Speaker 1: They moved up the galleries, the guard and the returned
• 2:09:33
  Speaker 1: warriors stark in their midst threading up the cliff through
• 2:09:38
  Speaker 1: passage after passage, all talking at once, or so it seemed.
• 2:09:44
  Speaker 1: The guards did the talking. None of the dead warriors replied.
• 2:09:49
  Speaker 1: They only seemed to. Stark heard the music strong and
• 2:09:53
  Speaker 1: clear everywhere. They reached the green gardens atop the cliff.
• 2:09:58
  Speaker 1: By this time the entire city was a Women came running,
• 2:10:02
  Speaker 1: bare breasted and sobbing and throwing themselves forward into the
• 2:10:06
  Speaker 1: ranks of their lovers. Flowers showered over them. So this
• 2:10:11
  Speaker 1: is war, muttered Stark uneasily. They stopped in the center
• 2:10:15
  Speaker 1: of the great gardens. The crowd milled happily, not yet
• 2:10:19
  Speaker 1: aware of the strange silence from their men. They were
• 2:10:23
  Speaker 1: too happy to notice. Now cried Stark to himself, now's
• 2:10:28
  Speaker 1: the time now, as if in answer a wild swirling
• 2:10:32
  Speaker 1: of harps out of the sky. The crowd stopped laughing
• 2:10:36
  Speaker 1: only when the returned warriors of Falgus wept forward, their
• 2:10:40
  Speaker 1: hands lifted and groping before them. The crying in the
• 2:10:44
  Speaker 1: streets was like a far siren wailing. Metal made a
• 2:10:47
  Speaker 1: harsh clangor that was sheathed in silence. At the same moment,
• 2:10:51
  Speaker 1: Metal found flesh to lie in. A vicious pantomime was concluded.
• 2:10:56
  Speaker 1: In the green, moist gardens, Stark watched from Ron's empty citadel.
• 2:11:01
  Speaker 1: Fog plumes strolled by the archways, and a thick rain fell.
• 2:11:06
  Speaker 1: It came like a blood squall and washed the garden
• 2:11:08
  Speaker 1: below until you could not tell rain from blood. The
• 2:11:12
  Speaker 1: returned warriors had gotten their swords by now. First they
• 2:11:16
  Speaker 1: killed those nearest them in the celebration. Then they took
• 2:11:19
  Speaker 1: the weapons from the victims. It was very simple and
• 2:11:23
  Speaker 1: very unpleasant. The slaves had joined the battle, now, swarming
• 2:11:28
  Speaker 1: up from the slave town, Plucking up fallen daggers and
• 2:11:31
  Speaker 1: short swords, they circled the gardens, happening upon the arrogant,
• 2:11:36
  Speaker 1: shining warriors of Ron who had so far escaped the quiet,
• 2:11:40
  Speaker 1: deadly killing of the alive but dead men. Dead father killed,
• 2:11:45
  Speaker 1: startled a live son, dead brother, garreted unbelieving brother Carnival. Indeed,
• 2:11:51
  Speaker 1: in Falga, an old man waited alone. Stark saw him.
• 2:11:57
  Speaker 1: The old man had a weapon, but refused to use.
• 2:12:01
  Speaker 1: A young warrior of Falga, harped on by Lynnel's harp,
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 1: walked quietly up to the old man. The old man
• 2:12:08
  Speaker 1: cried out his mouth formed words, son, what is this?
• 2:12:14
  Speaker 1: He flung down his blade and made to plead with
• 2:12:16
  Speaker 1: his boy. The sun stabbed him with silent efficiency, without
• 2:12:21
  Speaker 1: a glance at the body. Walked onward to find another.
• 2:12:25
  Speaker 1: Stark turned away, sick and cold. A thousand such scenes
• 2:12:30
  Speaker 1: were being finished. He set fire to the black spider
• 2:12:34
  Speaker 1: silk tapestries. They whispered and talked with flame. The stone
• 2:12:39
  Speaker 1: echoed his feet as he searched room after room. Ron
• 2:12:44
  Speaker 1: had gone probably last night. That meant that crom Dou
• 2:12:48
  Speaker 1: was on the verge of falling, was foul and dead.
• 2:12:52
  Speaker 1: Had the people of crom Dou seen Bedick's suffering given
• 2:12:56
  Speaker 1: in Falgus's harbor was completely devoid ships, except for small
• 2:13:01
  Speaker 1: fishing skiffs, the fog waited him. When he returned to
• 2:13:05
  Speaker 1: the garden, Rain found his face. The Citadel of Ron
• 2:13:10
  Speaker 1: was firing, crusted and smoke shrouded. As he looked up
• 2:13:12
  Speaker 1: at it, a silence lay in the garden. The fight
• 2:13:17
  Speaker 1: was over. The men of Falga, still shining with source life,
• 2:13:22
  Speaker 1: hung their blades from uncomprehending fingers, the light beginning to
• 2:13:27
  Speaker 1: leave the green eyes. Their skin looked dirty and dull.
• 2:13:31
  Speaker 1: Stark wasted no time getting down to the galleries, through
• 2:13:35
  Speaker 1: the slave quarter, and through the quays again. Lintel awaited him,
• 2:13:40
  Speaker 1: gently petting the obedient harp. It's over. The slaves will
• 2:13:44
  Speaker 1: on what's left. They'll be our allies since we've freed them.
• 2:13:49
  Speaker 1: Stark didn't hear. He was squinting off over the red sea.
• 2:13:54
  Speaker 1: Lindel understood. He plucked two tones from the harp, which
• 2:13:58
  Speaker 1: pronounced the two words uppermost in Stark's thought, Chrome dew.
• 2:14:03
  Speaker 1: If we're not too late, Stark leaned forward. If Fowlin lives,
• 2:14:08
  Speaker 1: If Butick still stands at the masthead. Like a blind man,
• 2:14:12
  Speaker 1: He walked straight ahead until he fell into the sea.
• 2:14:17
  Speaker 1: It was not quite a million miles to Chrome Dew.
• 2:14:20
  Speaker 1: It only seemed that far. A sweep of tide picked
• 2:14:23
  Speaker 1: them up just offshore from Falga and siphoned them rapidly
• 2:14:27
  Speaker 1: through deeps along coastal latitudes, through crystal forests. He cursed
• 2:14:33
  Speaker 1: every mile of the way. He cursed the time it
• 2:14:36
  Speaker 1: took to pause at the Titan city to gather fresh men,
• 2:14:40
  Speaker 1: to gather Cleve and Mont and Assore and Bruce. Impatiently,
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 1: Stark watched the whole drama of the source fire and
• 2:14:48
  Speaker 1: the bodies again. This time it was the bodies of
• 2:14:52
  Speaker 1: Crome Dew men hung like beasts on slow turned spits,
• 2:14:57
  Speaker 1: their limbs and vitals, suaking through and through their skins,
• 2:15:01
  Speaker 1: taking bronze color, their eyes holding flint sparks, and then
• 2:15:06
  Speaker 1: the harps wove a garment around each, and the garment
• 2:15:09
  Speaker 1: moved the men instead of the men the garment in
• 2:15:13
  Speaker 1: the tidal basilic. Now Stark twisted. Coursing behind him were
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 1: the new bodies of Cleve and Aesore. The current elevated them,
• 2:15:23
  Speaker 1: poked them through obsidian needle eyes like spider silk threads.
• 2:15:28
  Speaker 1: There was good irony in this. Cromdew's men, fallen at
• 2:15:32
  Speaker 1: Falga under Conan's treachery, returned now under Conan to exonerate
• 2:15:38
  Speaker 1: that treachery. Suddenly they were in Cromdew's outer basin. Shadows
• 2:15:43
  Speaker 1: swept over them, The long, dark, falling shadows of Falga's
• 2:15:48
  Speaker 1: longboats lain in that harbor. Shadows like black cooling nets
• 2:15:53
  Speaker 1: let down. The school of men cleaved the shadow nets.
• 2:15:58
  Speaker 1: The tide ceased here, eddied and distilled them. Stark glared
• 2:16:03
  Speaker 1: up at the immense silver bottom of a Falgin ship.
• 2:16:07
  Speaker 1: He felt his face stiffen in, his throat tighten. Then,
• 2:16:10
  Speaker 1: flexing his knees, he rammed upward. Night air broke dark
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 1: red around his head. The harbor held flare torches on
• 2:16:19
  Speaker 1: the rims of long ships, on the neck of land
• 2:16:22
  Speaker 1: that led from Cromdu to the mainland. The continuing battle sounded.
• 2:16:27
  Speaker 1: Faint cries and clashing made their way through the fog veils.
• 2:16:31
  Speaker 1: They sounded like echoes of past dreams. Lina, let Stark
• 2:16:36
  Speaker 1: have the leash. Stark felt something pressed into his fist,
• 2:16:41
  Speaker 1: a coil of slender, green woven reeds, a rope with
• 2:16:45
  Speaker 1: hooked weights on the end of it. He knew how
• 2:16:48
  Speaker 1: to use it without asking, but he wished for a
• 2:16:51
  Speaker 1: knife now, even though he realized carrying a knife in
• 2:16:54
  Speaker 1: the sea was all but impossible if he wanted to
• 2:16:57
  Speaker 1: move fast. He saw the s leak naked figurehead of
• 2:17:01
  Speaker 1: Ron's best ship one hundred yards away, a floating silhouette,
• 2:17:06
  Speaker 1: its torches hanging fire like Butudick's hair. He swam toward it,
• 2:17:11
  Speaker 1: breathing quietly. When at last the silvered figurehead with the
• 2:17:15
  Speaker 1: mocking green eyes and the flag of Shoal shallow hair
• 2:17:18
  Speaker 1: hung over him. He felt the cool white ship metal
• 2:17:21
  Speaker 1: kiss his fingers, the smell of torch smoke lingered. A
• 2:17:26
  Speaker 1: rise of faint shouts from the land told of another
• 2:17:29
  Speaker 1: rush upon the gate behind him, a ripple, then a
• 2:17:34
  Speaker 1: thousand ripples. The resurrected men of Chrome Dew rose in
• 2:17:39
  Speaker 1: dense and stirrings of sparkling wine. They stared at Chrome Dow,
• 2:17:44
  Speaker 1: and maybe they knew what it was, and maybe they didn't.
• 2:17:48
  Speaker 1: For one moment, Stark felt apprehension. Suppose Lintel was playing
• 2:17:53
  Speaker 1: a game. Suppose once these men had won the battle,
• 2:17:57
  Speaker 1: they went on into Chrome dou to rupture Romna's harp
• 2:18:01
  Speaker 1: and make Fowlin the binder. He shook the thought away
• 2:18:05
  Speaker 1: that would have to be handled in time on either
• 2:18:09
  Speaker 1: side of him, Cleve and Mont appeared. They looked at
• 2:18:12
  Speaker 1: chrome Do, their lips shut. Maybe they saw Fallen's ear
• 2:18:17
  Speaker 1: and heard a harp that was more than these harps,
• 2:18:19
  Speaker 1: that sang them to blade and plunder. Romna's instrument, telling
• 2:18:24
  Speaker 1: barred tales of the rovers and the coastal wars and
• 2:18:27
  Speaker 1: the old living days. Their eyes looked and looked at
• 2:18:31
  Speaker 1: Chrome Do, but saw nothing. The sea shepherds appeared now,
• 2:18:36
  Speaker 1: the followers of Lynnel, each with his harp, and the
• 2:18:39
  Speaker 1: harp music begin high, so high you couldn't hear it.
• 2:18:44
  Speaker 1: It wove attention on the air, silently, with a grim certainty.
• 2:18:50
  Speaker 1: The dead but not dead, gathered in a bronze circle
• 2:18:53
  Speaker 1: about Ron's ship. The very silence of their encirclement made
• 2:18:57
  Speaker 1: your skin crawl and sweat break on your cheeks. A
• 2:19:02
  Speaker 1: dozen ropes went raveling, looping over the ship's side. They caught, held,
• 2:19:08
  Speaker 1: grapneled hooked. Stark had thrown his felt it, bite and hold.
• 2:19:14
  Speaker 1: Now he scrambled swiftly, cursing up its length, kicking and
• 2:19:18
  Speaker 1: slipping at the silver hull. He reached the top, Butudick
• 2:19:23
  Speaker 1: was there, half over the low rail. He hesitated, just
• 2:19:28
  Speaker 1: looking at her torchlight limbed her, shadowed her. She was
• 2:19:34
  Speaker 1: still erect. Her head was tired and her eyes were closed,
• 2:19:38
  Speaker 1: her face thinned and less brown, but she was still alive.
• 2:19:43
  Speaker 1: She was coming out of a deep stupor. Now at
• 2:19:46
  Speaker 1: the whistle of ropes and the grate of metal hooks
• 2:19:48
  Speaker 1: on the deck, she saw Stark, and her lips parted.
• 2:19:52
  Speaker 1: She did not look away from him. His breath came
• 2:19:56
  Speaker 1: out of him, choking. It almost cost him his law.
• 2:20:00
  Speaker 1: His standing there looking at her. A guard with flesh
• 2:20:05
  Speaker 1: like new snow shafted his bow from the turret and
• 2:20:08
  Speaker 1: let it loose. A chain lay on the deck. Thankfully,
• 2:20:12
  Speaker 1: Stark took it. Klev came over the rail beside Stark.
• 2:20:17
  Speaker 1: His chest took the arrow. The shaft burst through and
• 2:20:21
  Speaker 1: stopped held. Clev kept on going after the man who
• 2:20:25
  Speaker 1: had shot it. He caught up with him, but dug
• 2:20:28
  Speaker 1: cried out, behind you, Conan, Conan. In her excitement, she
• 2:20:33
  Speaker 1: gave the old name Conan. He was whirling. He confronted
• 2:20:39
  Speaker 1: a wiry little fellow, chained him brutally across the face,
• 2:20:44
  Speaker 1: seized the man's falling sword, used it on him. Then
• 2:20:48
  Speaker 1: he walked in got the man's jaw unbalanced him over
• 2:20:52
  Speaker 1: into the sea. The ship was awake. Now Most of
• 2:20:57
  Speaker 1: the men had been down below, resting from the battle.
• 2:21:01
  Speaker 1: Now they came pouring up in a silver spad. Their
• 2:21:05
  Speaker 1: yelling was in strange contrast to the calm silence of
• 2:21:08
  Speaker 1: Cromdew's men. Stark found himself busy. Conan had been a
• 2:21:13
  Speaker 1: healthy animal with great recuperative powers. Now his muscles responded
• 2:21:19
  Speaker 1: to every trick asked of them. Stark leaped cleanly across
• 2:21:23
  Speaker 1: the deck, watching for Ron, but she was nowhere to
• 2:21:27
  Speaker 1: be seen. He engaged two blades, dispatched one of them.
• 2:21:32
  Speaker 1: More ropes raveled high and snaked him. Every ship in
• 2:21:36
  Speaker 1: the harbor was exploding with violence. More men swarmed over
• 2:21:41
  Speaker 1: the rail behind Stark. Silently above the shouting, Bedick's voice
• 2:21:46
  Speaker 1: came at the sight of the fighting men. Klev mont
• 2:21:50
  Speaker 1: Asser Stark was a god. Anything he wanted, he could
• 2:21:55
  Speaker 1: have a man's head. He could have it had meant
• 2:22:00
  Speaker 1: acting the guillotine with knife and wrist and lunged body
• 2:22:04
  Speaker 1: like this. His eyes were smoking amber, and there were
• 2:22:08
  Speaker 1: deep lines of grim pleasure tugging at his lips. An
• 2:22:12
  Speaker 1: enemy cannot fight without hands. One man facing Stark suddenly
• 2:22:17
  Speaker 1: displayed violent stumps before his face, not believing them. Are
• 2:22:22
  Speaker 1: you watching? Fallin? Cried Stark inside himself, delivering blows. Look here, Falin, God, no,
• 2:22:31
  Speaker 1: you're blind. Listen then hear the ring of steel on steel.
• 2:22:36
  Speaker 1: Does the smell of hot blood and hot bodies reach you? Oh?
• 2:22:40
  Speaker 1: If you could see this tonight, Folin Falgo would be forgotten.
• 2:22:46
  Speaker 1: This is conan out of idiocy, with a guy named
• 2:22:49
  Speaker 1: Stark wearing him and telling him where to go. It
• 2:22:53
  Speaker 1: was not safe on deck. Stark hadn't particularly noticed before,
• 2:22:57
  Speaker 1: but the warriors of Cromdew didn't care who they attacked.
• 2:23:00
  Speaker 1: Now they were beginning to do surgery to one another.
• 2:23:05
  Speaker 1: They excised one another's shoulders, severed limbs in blind, instantaneous obedience.
• 2:23:12
  Speaker 1: This was no place for Butick and himself. He cut
• 2:23:15
  Speaker 1: her free of the masthead, drew her quickly to the
• 2:23:18
  Speaker 1: rail buteg was laughing. She could do nothing but laugh.
• 2:23:24
  Speaker 1: Her eyes were shocked. She saw dead men alive again,
• 2:23:28
  Speaker 1: lashing out with weapons. She had been starved and made
• 2:23:32
  Speaker 1: to stand night and day, and now she could only laugh.
• 2:23:36
  Speaker 1: Stark shook her. She did not stop laughing. But Dag,
• 2:23:41
  Speaker 1: you're all right, you're free, She stared at nothing. How
• 2:23:46
  Speaker 1: I'll be all right? In a minute, he had to
• 2:23:49
  Speaker 1: ward off a blow from one of his own men.
• 2:23:52
  Speaker 1: He parried the thrust, then got in and pushed the
• 2:23:54
  Speaker 1: man off the deck over into the sea. That was
• 2:23:58
  Speaker 1: the only thing to do. You couldn't kill them. Butdeg
• 2:24:02
  Speaker 1: stared down at the tumbling body. Where's Ron? Starch yellow
• 2:24:07
  Speaker 1: eyes narrowed, searching she was here, Butdeg trembled. Ron looked
• 2:24:13
  Speaker 1: out of her eyes, out of the tired numbness of Butdeg,
• 2:24:18
  Speaker 1: an echo of Ron. Ron was near by, and this
• 2:24:22
  Speaker 1: was her doing. Instinctively, Stark raised his eyes. Ron appeared
• 2:24:28
  Speaker 1: at the masthead like a flurry of snow. Her green
• 2:24:32
  Speaker 1: tipped breasts were rising and falling with emotion. Pure hatred
• 2:24:37
  Speaker 1: lay in her eyes. Stark licked his lips and riddied
• 2:24:40
  Speaker 1: his sword. Ron snapped a glance at buteg stooping as
• 2:24:45
  Speaker 1: in a dream. Butdig picked up a dagger and held
• 2:24:48
  Speaker 1: it to her own breast. Stark froze. Ron nodded with satisfaction. Well, Stark,
• 2:24:56
  Speaker 1: how will it be? Will you come at me and
• 2:24:59
  Speaker 1: have Butdig? Or will you let me go free? Stark's
• 2:25:03
  Speaker 1: palms felt sweaty and greasy. There's no place for you
• 2:25:07
  Speaker 1: to go. Fog is taken. I can't guarantee your freedom.
• 2:25:12
  Speaker 1: If you want to go over the side into the sea,
• 2:25:14
  Speaker 1: that's your chance. You might make sure, and your own
• 2:25:18
  Speaker 1: men swimming with the sea beasts waiting. She accented the
• 2:25:23
  Speaker 1: beasts heavily. She was one of the sea people. They
• 2:25:29
  Speaker 1: Linnel and his men were sea beasts. No, Hugh Stark,
• 2:25:33
  Speaker 1: I'll take a skiff. Put Buttick at the rail, where
• 2:25:36
  Speaker 1: I can watch her all the way, guarantee my passage
• 2:25:39
  Speaker 1: to shore and my own men there, And Buttick lives.
• 2:25:43
  Speaker 1: Stark waved his sword, get going. He didn't want to
• 2:25:47
  Speaker 1: let her go. He had other plans, good plans for her.
• 2:25:52
  Speaker 1: He shouted the deal down at Lynel. Lynnel nodded back
• 2:25:56
  Speaker 1: with much reluctance. Ron in a small silver skiff headed
• 2:26:01
  Speaker 1: toward land. She handled the boat and looked back at
• 2:26:04
  Speaker 1: Butick all the time. She passed through the sea beasts
• 2:26:08
  Speaker 1: and touched the shore. She lifted her hand and brought
• 2:26:12
  Speaker 1: it smashing down whirling. Stark swung his fist against Butig's jaw.
• 2:26:18
  Speaker 1: Her hand was already striking the blade into her breast.
• 2:26:22
  Speaker 1: Her head flopped back, His fist carried through. She fell.
• 2:26:27
  Speaker 1: The blade clattered. He kicked it overboard. Then he lifted
• 2:26:32
  Speaker 1: but egg. She was warm and good to hold. The
• 2:26:36
  Speaker 1: blade had only pricked her breast. A small rivulet of
• 2:26:40
  Speaker 1: blood ran on the shore. Ron vanished up toward the rocks,
• 2:26:45
  Speaker 1: hurrying to find her men in the harbor. The harp
• 2:26:49
  Speaker 1: music paused, the ships were taken, their crews lay, filling
• 2:26:54
  Speaker 1: the decks. Cromdews men stopped fighting as quickly as they
• 2:26:58
  Speaker 1: had started. Some of the bright shining had dulled from
• 2:27:02
  Speaker 1: the bronze of their arms and bare torsils. The ships
• 2:27:05
  Speaker 1: began to sink. Linnel swam below, looking up at Stark.
• 2:27:11
  Speaker 1: Stark looked back at him and nodded at the beach swell.
• 2:27:15
  Speaker 1: Now let's go get that she devil, he said. Fallen
• 2:27:20
  Speaker 1: waited on his great stone balcony, overlooking chrome dew behind him.
• 2:27:25
  Speaker 1: The fires blazed high, and their eating sound of flame
• 2:27:28
  Speaker 1: on wood filled the pillared gloom with sound and furious light.
• 2:27:33
  Speaker 1: Follin leaned against the rim, his chest swathed in bandage
• 2:27:37
  Speaker 1: and healing ointment, his blind eyes flickering, looking down again
• 2:27:41
  Speaker 1: and again with a fixed intensity, his head tilted to listen.
• 2:27:47
  Speaker 1: Ramna stood beside him, filled and refilled the cup that
• 2:27:51
  Speaker 1: Falin emptied into his thirsty mouth, and told him what happened,
• 2:27:55
  Speaker 1: told of the men pouring out of the sea and
• 2:27:58
  Speaker 1: ron appearing on the rocky shore. Sometimes Fallin leaned to
• 2:28:03
  Speaker 1: one side, weakly toward Romna's words. Sometimes he twisted to
• 2:28:08
  Speaker 1: hear the thing itself, the thing that happened down beyond
• 2:28:12
  Speaker 1: the gate of besieged Valga. Romna's harp lay untouched. He
• 2:28:17
  Speaker 1: didn't play it, he didn't need to. From below, a
• 2:28:21
  Speaker 1: great echoing of harps, more liquid than his, like a waterfall,
• 2:28:26
  Speaker 1: drenched the city, making the fog sob down. Red tears.
• 2:28:30
  Speaker 1: Are those harps? Cried Fallen, Yes, harps? What was that?
• 2:28:36
  Speaker 1: Fallen listened, breathing harshly, clutching for support. A skirmish, said Romna,
• 2:28:43
  Speaker 1: who won? We won? And that Fallin's blind eyes tried
• 2:28:49
  Speaker 1: to see until they watered the enemy falling back from
• 2:28:53
  Speaker 1: the gate, and that sound, and that sound. Fallen went
• 2:28:57
  Speaker 1: on and on, feverishly, turning this way and that, the
• 2:29:02
  Speaker 1: lines of his face agonized and attentive to each eddy
• 2:29:06
  Speaker 1: in current and change of tide. The rhythm of swords
• 2:29:09
  Speaker 1: through fog and body was a complicated music whose themes
• 2:29:13
  Speaker 1: he must recognize. Another fell, I heard him cry, and
• 2:29:18
  Speaker 1: another of Ron's men. Yes, said Romna. But why do
• 2:29:23
  Speaker 1: our warriors fight so quietly? I have heard nothing from
• 2:29:26
  Speaker 1: their lips? So quiet? Ramna scowled, quiet, yes, quiet, And
• 2:29:33
  Speaker 1: where did they come from? All our men are in
• 2:29:36
  Speaker 1: the city, ay. Romna shifted, He hesitated, squinting, He rubbed
• 2:29:43
  Speaker 1: his bulldog jaw except those that died at Falga. Falin
• 2:29:48
  Speaker 1: stood there a moment. Then he wrapped his empty cup.
• 2:29:52
  Speaker 1: More wine, Bard, more wine. He turned to the battle again. O, Gods,
• 2:29:58
  Speaker 1: if I could see it, if I could only see
• 2:30:00
  Speaker 1: it below, A ringing crash, a silence, a shouting, a
• 2:30:06
  Speaker 1: pouring of noise the gate. Falin was stricken with fear.
• 2:30:12
  Speaker 1: We've lost my sword, stay Falin. Romna laughed. Then he sighed.
• 2:30:19
  Speaker 1: It was a sigh that did not believe in the
• 2:30:22
  Speaker 1: name of ten thousand miny gods. Would that I were
• 2:30:25
  Speaker 1: blind now or could see better? Falon's hand caught held him.
• 2:30:31
  Speaker 1: What is it? Tell? Clev and Plan and Conan and
• 2:30:37
  Speaker 1: Bluke and Mont standing in the gate like wine visions
• 2:30:42
  Speaker 1: swords in their hands. Falon's hand relaxed, then tightened. Speak
• 2:30:47
  Speaker 1: their names again, and speak them slowly, and tell the truth.
• 2:30:52
  Speaker 1: His skin shivered like that of a nervous animal. You said,
• 2:30:56
  Speaker 1: clev Mont Bluke and Plan and Conan back from Falga.
• 2:31:02
  Speaker 1: They've opened the gate and the battle's won. It's over.
• 2:31:06
  Speaker 1: Follin chrome Dew will sleep tonight. Fallan let him go.
• 2:31:11
  Speaker 1: A sob broke from his lips. I will get drunk,
• 2:31:15
  Speaker 1: drunker than ever in my life, gloriously drunk, gods. But
• 2:31:20
  Speaker 1: if I could have seen it, been in it, tell
• 2:31:23
  Speaker 1: me again of it. Romna Fallin sat in the great
• 2:31:28
  Speaker 1: Hall on his carved high seat, waiting the pad of
• 2:31:32
  Speaker 1: sandals on stone. Outside the jangle of chains, a door
• 2:31:37
  Speaker 1: flung wide. Red fog sluiced in and in the sleuth
• 2:31:41
  Speaker 1: people walking. Folan started up. Clev Mont Asser Stark came
• 2:31:49
  Speaker 1: forward into the firelight. He pressed his right hand to
• 2:31:53
  Speaker 1: the open mouth of the wound on his thigh. No, Fallin,
• 2:31:57
  Speaker 1: myself and two others, Yes, and Bedeck came wearily to him.
• 2:32:04
  Speaker 1: Falin stared, who's the other it walks light? It's a woman.
• 2:32:10
  Speaker 1: Stark nodded, Ron. Falan rose carefully from his seat. He
• 2:32:16
  Speaker 1: thought the name over. He took a short sword from
• 2:32:19
  Speaker 1: a place beside the high seat. He stepped down. He
• 2:32:24
  Speaker 1: walked towards Stark. You brought Ron alive to me. Stark
• 2:32:29
  Speaker 1: pulled the chain that bound Ron. She ran forward in
• 2:32:32
  Speaker 1: little steps, her white face down. Her eyes slidded with
• 2:32:37
  Speaker 1: animal fury. Falan's blind said Stark, I will let you
• 2:32:42
  Speaker 1: live for one damn good reason. Ron, okay, go ahead.
• 2:32:47
  Speaker 1: Falen stopped walking. Curious. He waited. Ron did nothing. Stark
• 2:32:54
  Speaker 1: took her hand and wrenched it behind her back. I said,
• 2:32:57
  Speaker 1: go ahead. Maybe you didn't hear me. I will, She
• 2:33:01
  Speaker 1: gasped in pain. Stark released her. Tell me what happens Fallen.
• 2:33:07
  Speaker 1: Ron gazed steadily at Falin's tall figure there in the light.
• 2:33:12
  Speaker 1: Falan suddenly threw his hands to his eyes and choked.
• 2:33:16
  Speaker 1: Beauty cried out. Seized his arm. I can see, Falin staggered,
• 2:33:21
  Speaker 1: as if jolted. I can see. First, he shouted it,
• 2:33:25
  Speaker 1: then he whispered it, I can see. Stark's eyes blurred.
• 2:33:31
  Speaker 1: He whispered to Ron. Tightly, make him see it, Ron,
• 2:33:35
  Speaker 1: or you die. Now make him see it. To Falin,
• 2:33:39
  Speaker 1: what do you see? Fallin was bewildered. He swayed. He
• 2:33:45
  Speaker 1: put out his hands to shape the vision. I I
• 2:33:48
  Speaker 1: see Crumb, dieu, it's a good sight. I see the
• 2:33:52
  Speaker 1: ships of Ron sinking. He laughed, a broken laugh. I
• 2:33:57
  Speaker 1: see the fight beyond the gate. Silence swam in the
• 2:34:01
  Speaker 1: room over their heads. Falin's voice went alone and hypnotized
• 2:34:07
  Speaker 1: into that silence. He put out his big fists, shook them,
• 2:34:12
  Speaker 1: opened them. I see Mont and Asser and Cleve fighting
• 2:34:17
  Speaker 1: as they always fought. I see Conan as he was.
• 2:34:21
  Speaker 1: I see Bedeck wilding steel again on the shore. I
• 2:34:25
  Speaker 1: see the enemy killed. I see men pouring out of
• 2:34:28
  Speaker 1: the sea with brown skirts and dark hair, men I
• 2:34:32
  Speaker 1: knew long darkness ago, men that roved the sea with me.
• 2:34:37
  Speaker 1: I see Ron captured. He began to sob with it,
• 2:34:41
  Speaker 1: his lungs, feeling and releasing it, sucking in on it,
• 2:34:45
  Speaker 1: blowing it out. Tears ran down from his vacant, blazing eyes.
• 2:34:50
  Speaker 1: I see Crumb do as it was and is and
• 2:34:54
  Speaker 1: shall be. I see I see, I see Stark felt
• 2:34:59
  Speaker 1: the chill on the back of his neck. I see
• 2:35:02
  Speaker 1: Ron captured and held, and her men dead around her
• 2:35:05
  Speaker 1: on the land. Before the gate. I see the gate
• 2:35:08
  Speaker 1: thrown open. Follen halted. He looked at Stark, Where are
• 2:35:13
  Speaker 1: cleven Mont? Where is Bluck? And ass her? Stark let
• 2:35:18
  Speaker 1: the fires burn on the hearths a long moment, then
• 2:35:21
  Speaker 1: he replied, they went back into the sea. Fowlin Flin's
• 2:35:25
  Speaker 1: fingers fell emptily, Yes, he said, heavily. They had to
• 2:35:30
  Speaker 1: go back, didn't they. They couldn't stay, could they? Not
• 2:35:35
  Speaker 1: even one night? For food on the table and wine
• 2:35:38
  Speaker 1: in the mouth, and women in the deep warm furs
• 2:35:41
  Speaker 1: before the hearth, Not even for one toast? He turned
• 2:35:45
  Speaker 1: a drink, Romna, a drink for everyone. Romna gave him
• 2:35:50
  Speaker 1: a full cup. He dropped it, fell down to his knees,
• 2:35:54
  Speaker 1: clawed at his breasts. My heart, Ron, you see devil.
• 2:36:00
  Speaker 1: Stark held her instantly by the throat. He put pressure
• 2:36:04
  Speaker 1: on the small, raging pulses on either side of her
• 2:36:06
  Speaker 1: snow white neck. Let him go, Ron, more pressure, let
• 2:36:11
  Speaker 1: him go. Follin grunted. Stark held her until her white
• 2:36:16
  Speaker 1: face was dirty and strange with death. It seemed like
• 2:36:19
  Speaker 1: an hour later. When he released her, she fell softly
• 2:36:23
  Speaker 1: and did not move. She wouldn't move again. Stark turned
• 2:36:28
  Speaker 1: slowly to look at Fowlin. You saw, didn't you, Follin,
• 2:36:32
  Speaker 1: he said. Follan nodded blindly. Weakly. He roused himself from
• 2:36:38
  Speaker 1: the floor, groping. I saw for a moment, I saw
• 2:36:42
  Speaker 1: everything and God's but it made good scene. Here Hugh
• 2:36:47
  Speaker 1: Stark called Conan, give this other sight of me something
• 2:36:50
  Speaker 1: to lean on. But again Stark climbed the mountain above Falca.
• 2:36:55
  Speaker 1: The next day, Stark went ahead a little way, and
• 2:36:59
  Speaker 1: with his coming the flamebird scattered, glittering away. He dug
• 2:37:03
  Speaker 1: the shallow grave and did what had to be done
• 2:37:05
  Speaker 1: with the body he found there. And then, when the
• 2:37:08
  Speaker 1: grave was covered with thick gray stones, he went back
• 2:37:12
  Speaker 1: for buteg They stood together over it. He had never
• 2:37:16
  Speaker 1: expected to stand over a part of himself, but here
• 2:37:19
  Speaker 1: he was, and Butdick's hand gripped his. He looked suddenly
• 2:37:24
  Speaker 1: a million years old. Standing there, he thought of Earth
• 2:37:28
  Speaker 1: in the belt, and Jupiter, of the joy streets in
• 2:37:31
  Speaker 1: the Jakara Low canals of Mars. He thought of space
• 2:37:35
  Speaker 1: and the ships going through it, and himself inside them.
• 2:37:39
  Speaker 1: He thought of the million credits he had taken in
• 2:37:41
  Speaker 1: that last job. He laughed ironically. Tomorrow I'll have the
• 2:37:46
  Speaker 1: sea creatures hunt for a little metal box full of credits.
• 2:37:50
  Speaker 1: He nodded solemnly at the grave. He wanted that, or
• 2:37:55
  Speaker 1: at least he thought he killed himself getting it. So
• 2:37:59
  Speaker 1: if the sea people'll find it, I'll send it up
• 2:38:01
  Speaker 1: here to the mountain and bury it down under the
• 2:38:04
  Speaker 1: rocks in his fingers, I guess that's the best place.
• 2:38:08
  Speaker 1: But Dag drew him away. They walked down the mountain
• 2:38:12
  Speaker 1: toward Falga's harbor, where a ship waited them. Walking, Stark
• 2:38:16
  Speaker 1: lifted his face, but Dag was with him, and the
• 2:38:20
  Speaker 1: sails of the ship were rising to take the wind,
• 2:38:23
  Speaker 1: and the Red Sea waited for them to travel it.
• 2:38:26
  Speaker 1: What lay on its far side was something for Butdag
• 2:38:29
  Speaker 1: and Fowlin of the ships, and Romna and Hugh Stark
• 2:38:32
  Speaker 1: called Knan to discover. He felt damn good about it.
• 2:38:37
  Speaker 1: He walked on steadily, holding but Dag near and on
• 2:38:41
  Speaker 1: the mountain. As the ship sailed, the flame birds soared
• 2:38:45
  Speaker 1: down fitfully and frustratedly to beat the stone mound ceased,
• 2:38:51
  Speaker 1: and morning Shrilly flew away. End of chapter five. End
• 2:38:57
  Speaker 1: of Loreli of the Red Miss by Leebre Rockett and
• 2:39:00
  Speaker 1: Ray Bradbury,