Chapter I: Front Matter

DARK DESTINY

By DWIGHT V. SWAIN

The Blue Warrior had journeyed far across
the void in his search for power; but he found
death along with it--in the eyes of a goddess!

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
March 1952
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

_Naked, still as death, the veiled woman-goddess men called Xaymar rested on a gold-draped dais within the great, glowing, crystal globe._

_Xaymar, queen of storms. Ruler of rain and wind and lightning, empress of all the surging forces that spread their tumult across the sky. Sainted monster, evil savior. Old as time, and young as folly. Born of woman, damned of men, wise with dark wisdom gone astray._

_Xaymar, passionate goddess. A word, a myth, a fading picture in forgotten books. A phantasm rising out of these ghostly, gutted cities, these ruins dead a thousand years._

_Yet here she lay in this deep-sunk vault, nude save for the short, jeweled veil that masked the top half of her face. Her body still gleamed like a supple ivory statue, a vision of sleek, ripe-curved perfection. Rippling waves of jet-black hair framed the pale, veiled oval of her face in a darkly radiant nimbus. A faint rose glow touched lips and breasts. It seemed almost as if she could have been sleeping here mere hours only, instead of eons; as if she were still alive and vibrant ... all woman; all terrible, voluptuous promise...._

* * * * *

The _Shamon_ priest was bent with age, his face a deep-seamed net of wrinkles. The short cloak of his order, vivid with a hundred contrasting shades of blue, covered his thin shoulders, and a _toloid_ tablet emblazoned with a stylized representation of a lightning bolt, Xaymar's emblem, hung suspended over his bony chest.

He said: "I want you to kill a woman."

Across the table, the blue warrior called Haral sat very still. He did not speak.

The old _Shamon_ hurried on: "They say the same, all those to whom I've spoken--that you alone, of all the warriors here on Ulna, would dare to go against the raider Sark. The rest are brave until they hear his name; then, quickly, they sing another song. But you--" He hesitated, fumbling, and peered uncertainly at Haral out of rheumy, fading eyes. "Tell me, blue one, is it true that you went alone to Eros and slew the tyrant lord Querroon because he'd dared to put a price upon your head? And that then you defied the Federation to try to hang you, and slashed your way through the whole Federation fleet with your single ship?"

"It's true."

"You see--?" the oldster cried in quavering triumph. "You see it, _Sha_ Haral? You are a warrior worthy of the name! In you there's iron instead of meal. That is why I come to you to kill this woman--"

"A woman--?" Haral repeated dully. He swirled the fiery _kabat_ in his glass. "Why should I kill a woman?"

"Because I'll pay you well," the _Shamon_ priest croaked eagerly. Coins clinked onto the table. "Here, look! Two hundred _samori_, _Sha_ Haral! So much for such a simple task--enough to send you out again from Ulna, to put you once more on the road to wealth and power, ambition...."

* * * * *

Broodingly, Haral stared down into the _kabat's_ green, too-potent depths. Of a sudden he was acutely conscious of the smoke and stench and jarring sound that eddied through the shadows of this filthy, frowsy deadfall that passed as a cafe. '_Wealth and power, ambition?_' He laughed aloud, knowing as he did it that his tongue had grown too thick with _kabat_. This was the road down which ambition led--the road to stinking drinking dives, and dreary nights and drearier days on an outlaw world called Ulna. The road to blood and valor, a warrior's name--and proposals of woman-murder.

Ambition? Two hundred _samori_-worth of ambition! Bitterly, he laughed again, deep in his throat. There were other, better things to call it: greed; thirst for blood; a cursed, insatiate lust for power.

The old priest gripped his arm. "Three hundred, then! Three hundred _samori_, _Sha_ Haral!"

Somberly, the blue man stared off into the crowd and smoke and shadows. It dawned on him that already new faces had sifted in; new forms, all arrogance and swagger.

The forms and faces of _Gar_ Sark's raiders.

"Three hundred _samori_? Three hundred--to challenge _Gar_ Sark and all his crew, as well as murder?" He smiled a thin, bleak, mirthless smile and shook his head. "No, old man. What you want is a madman, not a warrior."

"Four hundred--four hundred _samori_ for a single blow!" In his eagerness the priest was slavering. "No? Five, then, _Sha_ Haral! Five hundred, all for you. I have no more."

For the first time, Haral looked full at the _Shamon_. "Why do you want her dead?" he challenged. He brought his fist down with a heavy thud upon the table. "Why? That's what I want to know! Who is she? What has she done that calls for killing?"

"Why--?" Sweat came to the ancient's face. Uneasily, he shifted. "She--she--Sark is a monster, and his men have seized her for tomorrow's games in the arena. She'll die in agony at their hands. I--I cannot bring myself to let her suffer--"

"So you'd hire me to kill her instead?" Haral laughed harshly. "I hear your words, old man--"

"My name is Namboina."

"--Namboina, I hear your words. But I'll rot on your _vidal_ planetoid before I believe them. Too many other _Shamon_ have died on Ulna for you to worry about one more." He drained his glass and slammed it down. "No. Find someone else to do your killing. I like to know the facts before I murder."

* * * * *

The sweat stood out on the priest's forehead in great beads now. With shaking fingers, he wiped it away. "I--I see I must tell you all, _Sha_ Haral. The--the woman is Kyla, a virgin priestess to our goddess Xaymar. Her life, her body, are consecrated to the goddess. She is not for mortal men. But Sark and his raiders care nothing for our Xaymar. In their blood-lust and madness they would defile even her priestess, Kyla. But it cannot be! Better that Kyla die--" He broke off, stared at Haral. "I, Namboina, am high priest to Xaymar. It is my duty to save Kyla from shame, our goddess from defilement--"

Haral said: "You lie in your teeth, Namboina! I've heard enough of your thrice-plagued Xaymar to know that she's called the passionate goddess--and her priestesses pattern themselves upon her! If there's a virgin still among them, it's news to the raider fleets that comb these warrens in search of women."

"No, no--! Not Kyla!" The _Shamon's_ loose mouth worked. His face was a mask of desperation. "She is a votary, consecrated. She is not as the others--"

Haral shoved back his chair; surged to his feet. "I've had enough of your lies, old man!" he slashed. "Sing someone else your song of murder!"

Namboina's quavering voice rose, thin with fury: "A curse on you, alien! A curse on all your outland breed that have made a cesspool out of Ulna--"

But now a new voice cut him short, thundering through the shadows: "This is the one we want! The old one, the priest they call Namboina!"

Haral spun about.

A dozen fighting men from Sark's raider crews were coming towards him and Namboina. Spread in a menacing arc, weapons out and ready, they closed in like cold-eyed, deadly shadows.

Haral fell back a step, till he stood with his back against the wall. Big-eyed with fear, Namboina slumped in his seat, as if trying to hide behind the table.

It came to Haral that a hush had fallen over the _kabat_ dive. The raucous voices had faded into silence. The rattle of glasses was suddenly stilled.

Then a glowering Martian who seemed to be in charge of the raider gang snapped orders: "Yes. This is the one. Bring him along!"

A Thorian's tentacle lashed out to grip Namboina and drag him bodily from his chair.

Now a _Pervod_ jerked his scaly head towards Haral. "What of this one here? They were together."

The Martian pivoted for a brief, disdainful glance at the blue man. "That _kabat_-soaked scum?" And then: "But bring him, too. We'll take no chances."

Almost as if in intentional added insult, he turned away and sheathed his ray-gun.

* * * * *

A hot, tempestuous tide of anger swirled up within the warrior. But he did not move; he did not speak.

A second Martian caught his arm. "Come along, you _zanat_, before we stave in your ugly head!"

For an instant, in spite of himself, Haral's arm went rigid. Then, thin-lipped, he sucked in air, and fell in beside the quaking, shaking priest.

One of the raiders laughed contemptuously and shoved the pair of them ahead still faster.

They reached the narrow doorway that led out to the street. Then, while their prisoners paused, two of the raiders stepped outside.

A knot of tension drew tight in the pit of Haral's stomach. He let his shoulders slump, and slouched, half-turning.

Namboina stumbled on through the door.

A _Pervod_ pushed the blue man forward.

With studied care, Haral, too, stumbled. He caught the handle of the open door as if to keep himself from falling.

Then, like lightning, he was turning, kicking. The _Pervod_ crashed backward with a howl of anguish.

Haral leaped through the doorway, out into the street, slamming the heavy portal shut behind him. He caught a glimpse of the two crewmen there--startled, whirling.

But Namboina was between Haral and the raiders. Savagely, the blue man threw himself against the priest and sent him crashing into the nearest crewman.

The second of the raiders was a one-eyed, barrel-chested _Malya_. He leaped back, cat-fast, whipping up his ray-gun.

But Haral dived in beneath its shaft. His shoulder drove deep into the _Malya's_ midriff, hammering the dark raider down. Clutching for the ray-gun, he tore it out of the other's hand.

In the same instant, he heard Namboina cry out in panic.

By instinct, pure and simple, he dropped flat on his belly. By instinct, too, he fired the ray-gun--straight into the face of the second raider, free now and charging down upon him.

The raider dropped dead in his tracks.

Haral pivoted, just as the door to the _kabat_-dive jerked open. Again he triggered the weapon.

The charge caught the Martian in charge of the party square in the belly. The others, behind him, sprang back inside, out of the way.

* * * * *

The narrow street echoed with Haral's wild, reckless laughter. Lurching to his feet, he stood there swaying for a moment, looking this way and that for old Namboina.

But the _Shamon_ had disappeared as if by magic, and from within the _kabat-dive_ came sounds that spoke of preparations for another sally.

Whirling. Haral raced full-tilt for the nearest alley.

When he stopped again, he was half a mile and a hundred worlds away, lost in the tangled maze of passageways that wound through the crumbling heart of the native town. His legs were shaking, his lungs afire, and the _kabat_-sickness swirled through him in agonizing, nauseous waves. Choking and retching, he slumped exhausted in a murky entryway.

Then that, too, passed, and he lay silent and unmoving in the darkness. But now another sickness was upon him, the sickness that led him to seek surcease in _kabat_; the sickness that came with the thoughts he could not push out of his brain.

Where would it end, this madness that ever drove him on? What prize lay in power, that he must waste his life away searching, groping, striving for it? Why could he not live and love and die like other men, unplagued by the fierce surge of insane ambition that still pursued him--even here, even now?

_Even here, even now._ That was the acid that gnawed his vitals. What had it brought him, all his striving? He'd carved a crimson course across half a solar system, till that very system itself disowned him. He'd drenched the warrior worlds in blood to no avail.

And the road ended here.

Was this, then, his destiny--to hide here, rotting, beyond the reach of the Federation, till at last the _kabat_ took its toll? Must he sink lower and then still lower into the slime of this ugly outlaw world of Ulna, harassed at will by such scum as Sark?

But at least, there'd be no woman-murder. Not yet; not for a while. Even five hundred _samori_ could not drag him down that far.

A new spasm of fury shook him, and he cursed Namboina aloud with the vilest epithets a dozen tongues could offer.

But the inner sickness still lingered with him. Bitterly, he stumbled to his feet, wondering in the same instant what had led the _Shamon_ priest to lie--why he had really sought to have the woman called Kyla killed.

It was then he felt the weight in his side pocket.

Dully, he fumbled to find what it might be; then, puzzled, pulled it out into the open.

But it was only a bag ... a worn, somehow familiar bag.

A bag heavy with five hundred glittering _samori_....