Chapter II

He rode out at high noon astride the great, blue-scaled Mercurian _hwalon_ dragon that in itself struck terror into lesser men. The wars of the void had burned his own skin blue with searing krypton radiation, and long years of battle service had dulled the polish of the heavy copronium armor that he wore.

Few knew his name, nor whence he came. He'd buried himself too deep for that. But then, they did not need to know, for those were unimportant things in this brutal, brawling world of Ulna, where death walked so close on every hand.

It was a world of dangerous men, this Ulna; an outlaw world, tumultuous haven for the hunter and the hunted. The scum of the spaceways had gathered here, dregs of the void--rabble quick to anger, quick to kill. _Pervods_ of Venus brushed shoulders with Earthmen. _Chonyas_ and _Malyas_ stalked among strange mutants, weird life-forms drawn from a dozen far-flung planets.

Yet none came forth to challenge Haral. For those who eyed and measured him gave special attention to the slender, deadly, light-lance that was his weapon. Then, wordless, almost too quickly, they turned away.

So now he rode the filth-choked streets of this slattern town that served as Ulna's spaceport. And as he rode, beneath the blazing yellow sky, he smiled his thin, bleak, mirthless smile, and wondered how the motley mob that thronged these warrens would look if they realized his real mission.

Then, at last, he came to the plaza and _Gar_ Sark.

Sark, the renegade; Sark, the raider. Sark, who had looted Bandjaran. Sark, the butcher, with the blood of all Horla on his hands. Sark. A sinister figure, at best. At worst, a monster to strike terror across the void.

Ulna was his today, for no creature dared to stand against him. His ships had blazoned the purple night with streaks of scarlet flame as they ramped; and his crews too had turned the town scarlet with their violence, till even the other lawless ones gathered here were cowed to sullen silence.

This morning, the raiders had seized this ragged, unkempt tract that passed as a central park--that they might enjoy their own savage brand of sport, the rumor went.

'Sport?' Haral smiled his mirthless smile again. It was a good excuse, and Sark's own crews might even believe it. But for Sark himself, unless the day had come when tigers changed their stripes, grim business was mixed in with the pleasure. That was Sark's way; he made no move that did not offer possibilities of profit.

But how? The blue man frowned; then shrugged and urged the _hwalon_ on. It was enough that Sark was here; that the _Shamon_ priest, Namboina, had made his murderous proposal. Something was in the wind. He'd have to bide his time and trust to luck for further details.

* * * * *

A shout went up, even as Haral reached the outskirts of the milling crowd that had gathered in the plaza--a shout and, through it, the scream of a soul gone mad with pain.

The blue man pressed the _hwalon_ forward, trusting to the difference the armor made in his appearance to protect him from recognition by the members of last night's searching party.

The crowd of town rabble and raider crewmen gave way before him, parting under the menace of the _hwalon's_ claws and collar and horrid, hook-beaked head.

Sark's crews had set up an arena of sorts, with seats for their chiefs along one side. In front of the seats a crude ring was fenced in with posts and thin, resilient duraloid cable.

Within the ring, they had an Ulno--one of the grotesque, two-headed primitives that were this planetoid's dull-witted subject people.

And there, too, stood one of the scarlet coleoptera, the giant thinking beetles that were Ulna's plague.

Now, as Haral reached the front of the crowd, the coleopteron stalked forward, towards the Ulno. Hideous and deadly, it stood nearly three feet tall at the thorax. Its protuberant multi-faceted eyes glittered evilly. Mandibles clacking, the misshapen head moved from side to side in short, menacing arcs.

The crowd roared its blood-lust, its tension.

Revulsion touched Haral. But he gave the sadistic show no heed beyond it. Bleakly, he looked across the ring, to Sark himself.

Sark: a smirking, bulbous, obscene thing; half humanoid, half reptilian. _Gar_ of the space-raiders, king of killers. He sat in his famed Uranian riding-chair like some mad, monstrous potentate upon a throne. Eyes murder-bright beneath their reptilian lids, gross rolls of fat aquiver, he leaned far forward, watching the bloody battle unfold before him.

Here, looking at the raider chief for the first time, a wave of incredulous loathing, disillusion, rose up within Haral. Was this gross slug the best the warrior worlds could offer? Could a creature as soft and slack as this wield the power that had shaken half the void?

The bitter ashes of his own thwarted drive for empire ate at the blue man. The world swam with a crimson haze of hate and fury.

Then that mood passed, and Haral noticed other things.

For the raider's fat-rimmed eyes were never still, and the lights that gleamed deep in them told of craft and savage cunning. There was a brain behind those eyes--a brain so lightning-fast and wary that against it mere physical strength alone meant nothing. That was how he ruled this pack; that was why none lived to challenge.

And now, as he watched, Haral observed another thing: though the webbed fingers of Sark's left hand splayed out along one tree-like leg, kneading and clenching as if he were at one with the coleopteron, thirsting for the Ulno's very life, his right hand never moved from a switch set in the chair-arm.

* * * * *

Narrow-eyed, the blue man shifted for a better view. As best he could see, a cable led from the switch down to what appeared to be a bulky, black, cymosynthesizer box slung beneath the seat.

Frowning, Haral pondered. Almost unconsciously, he caressed his light-lance.

Then a new shout from the crowd drew his attention back to the arena.

In the ring, the wild-eyed, shaking Ulno was retreating before the giant beetle. One of his four hands already was shredded beyond all recognition. Blood gushed from a wound in another arm, slashed open to the bone. His two heads turned jerkily this way and that, desperately seeking some avenue of escape, some sign of mercy.

But no sign came. No path appeared.

The beetle poised. The point of its dagger-like antenna dropped a fraction lower.

With a shrill cry, the Ulno darted along the interlinked cables that bounded the arena in a last frantic effort to escape.

The coleopteron lunged. Beetle and primitive crashed together in wild, paroxysmic conflict.

Then, suddenly, the Ulno was reeling, falling. Again, his awful scream of pain and terror rent the air.

Like great, saw-toothed pincers, the coleopteron's mandibles stabbed in. The Ulno's cry cut off in bubbling death.

The crowd shrieked savage exaltation.

Once more, contempt, revulsion, gripped Haral. Thin-lipped, he worked his way around the ring towards Sark.

Laughter--ghoulish, obscene--rocked the raider chief. His rolls of fat shook. Tears of sheer sadistic glee spilled down his puffy cheeks.

But he still kept his hand on the switch set in the arm of the riding-chair.

Bleak, watchful, Haral brought the _hwalon_ to a halt in the lee of the wall nearest the arena. With the casualness of long habit, he surveyed the crowd, the ground, the disposition of Sark's forces.

In the same instant, he caught himself wondering whether Sark would laugh as loud by the time this day was done.

Or whether either he or Sark would live to laugh.

He smiled wryly.

But now, for the time, the raider's mirth had passed. A sudden air of suppressed tension came into his manner. His fleshy hand came up in a curt, peremptory gesture.

Instantly, two leering reptilian _Pervods_ from his crews dragged forward another victim.

But this time their prey was no quaking Ulno.

Instead, they held a woman.

A taut, furious excitement surged up within Haral. He sucked in air; leaned forward, gripping the _hwalon's_ saddle hard between his knees.

Sark gestured. The _Pervods_ dragged their prisoner to him.

* * * * *

She was young. Haral saw now; young, and slim, and incredibly lovely. Hair like spun gold hung to her waist--the silken blonde hair of the _Shamon_, the race that had ruled Ulna in the days before the renegades of a dozen worlds poured in from across the void to make the planetoid a blood-drenched, anarchistic madhouse.

But more than her face or body, it was her garb that held the blue man.

For she wore the blue cloak of Xaymar's order, and against her high, proud breasts hung the shining _toloid_ metal tablet that signified her consecration.

Once more, the gross monster that was _Gar_ Sark leaned forward. He spoke to the girl in a gentle, beguiling voice that struck a clashing paradox with the fiend's own soul that dwelt within him: "They call you Kyla, do they not?" He touched the tablet that rested upon her breasts. A webbed finger traced the lightning-bolt symbol emblazoned on it. "Kyla, virgin priestess to the veiled woman-goddess Xaymar, the one your people call the queen of storms...."

The blue man could see the tremor that rippled through the girl at Sark's grisly touch. But she did not quail. When she spoke, her voice was steady.

"That is true."

"Xaymar, queen of storms...." the raider chief repeated softly. He leaned back in the riding-chair, eyes sleepy and low-lidded. "She once lived, did she not, in mortal form? Here, on your planetoid of Ulna?"

"Yes. That is what the stories say."

"At her command, the storm-clouds gathered? She hurled the lightning bolts against her enemies?"

"So it is written in our sacred books."

"But then she went away," Sark murmured. "She left all you who were her people."

The girl called Kyla did not answer.

"Or did she?" Of a sudden the raider's lidded eyes were not so sleepy. His bulbous head came forward just a fraction. "There is another story, priestess ... a story that says the goddess Xaymar was truly woman--the most beautiful woman your world had ever seen. And because she was woman, human, she could not bear the thought that she must age and wither. So she commanded that she be placed, still young and in the full bloom of her beauty, within a secret crypt in frozen sleep, so that she might live forever as she had been."

* * * * *

For an instant Haral thought he could see a new tremor touch the priestess Kyla's slim young body. But only for an instant. Then her shoulders straightened. Her tone was cool, disdainful: "These are old wives' tales our stupid Ulnos tell--empty, without meaning. Xaymar was not even of my people, if indeed she ever lived. The old books say she came from a forgotten alien race, long vanished."

Haral felt a sudden rush of admiration--a kinship, almost, born of the girl's poise and unbending courage.

What path had she traveled to this final meeting? What forces had driven her to do whatever she had done to catch Sark's notice? Why was she playing for such stakes in a mad world filled with monsters?

What forces? His jaw tightened. Why had he, himself, come? Why was he throwing his own life into the balance? There could be no answer; not really. Not even five hundred _samori_ were enough to account for it. A man did the things that he must do--played the crazy game as he saw it and made up the reasons later; that was all. Raider, priestess, adventurer--each carved his own destiny.

Even Sark....

The raider chief was smiling now--a slow, smirking, secretive smile that was somehow horrible and loathsome. "But the other part, priestess? Is it true? Was your Xaymar really sealed in frozen sleep in a hidden vault here on your pygmy world of Ulna?"

The girl's slim shoulders lifted in a shrug. "Who knows? We _Shamon_ only let the tales go on to satisfy the Ulnos."

"What? You do not know?" Sark's fat-rimmed eyes now were bright and mocking; and, watching him, Haral gave new weight to the raider's craft and menace. "But I had heard a different story, Priestess Kyla! They told me you _did_ know--that you knew more of it than any other."

It was coming now, the moment of crisis. Haral could see it in their faces.

Grimly, he gripped his light-lance.

But Kyla still faced the raider chieftain boldly. "I cannot help what others say. I do not know."

The squat monster in the riding-chair leaned back once more, still smiling his secretive, sinister smile. A strange horror clung to his very calm, the deadly benignity of his soft-spoken words. It was as if he were some great toad, toying tenderly with a lovely, captive moth that its agony might last the longer.

"They say your whole life is given to a search for Xaymar, priestess. That you dream of the days when the _Shamon_ still ruled Ulna, and so you seek your goddess's hidden crypt, in order to rouse her from her sleep and turn her powers against all those whom you call alien." He licked his lips, and his head seemed to sink between his shoulders. "Some claim you even know where the crypt is hidden, and could go there now, were it not for fear of the thinking beetles, the coleoptera."

* * * * *

Slowly, the color drained from Kyla's face. A spark close akin to panic lighted in her eyes. She did not speak.

"Why do you blanch so, priestess?" Sark prodded. "I only seek to help you. Tell me where your goddess lies and I'll find her for you, in spite of the coleoptera. I'll bring her here, revive her, let her reign again among you--"

"You talk nonsense!" the girl cried. But her voice broke. Her whole body trembled.

Now, suddenly, Sark seemed to grow within the riding-chair, till he loomed like some gross giant. His lips drew back from his stained reptilian fangs. His eyes gleamed like burning coals. The mock-benignity, the gentleness, fell from him like a mask. His words slashed, low and savage: "Tell me where your bitch-goddess lies, you she-_sabar_! Tell me now, while you still have a voice to speak!"

"No, no--"

"So, virgin priestess--?" Sark's laugh rang like the mirth of hell. And then, with furious, fiendish passion: "You'll tell, or you'll not stay virgin long! There are mutants among my crews who have strange lusts. Press me too far, and you'll be the one to sate them! I'll turn them loose with you here in this arena as a show for the rest of us to see! What's left of your tender flesh when they are through will make a tasty morsel for the coleoptera!"

Sheer horror flooded Kyla's pale, lovely face. Convulsively, she tried to tear free from the grip of the two _Pervods_ who held her.

But they laughed aloud and jerked her back; lifted her upright before their chief, panting and struggling.

Haral sucked in air. In spite of himself, he dug his knees hard into the _hwalon's_ horny flanks. It took all his effort to hold himself otherwise immobile and fight down the fury that surged within him.

"Which shall it be, Priestess Kyla?" Sark now mocked with savage malice. "Do you talk and live, or meet my men? The choice is yours!"

* * * * *

For a moment the girl's eyes closed. Then, slowly, they opened once more, and she stood erect in the _Pervods'_ grasp. Her breath came faster. "Do you think me so weak that I'd betray my goddess and my people to save myself?" she cried passionately. A wave of wild, half-hysterical laughter shook her. "I know what you want! You seek not Xaymar, but Xaymar's secret--the way she harnessed the power that lies within the lightning, a power so great that with it you might rule the universe! But you will not have it! Bring on your crew, your coleoptera--"

Haral went rigid in the _hwalon's_ saddle. The girl's words rang in his ears, his brain.

There it was! There lay the secret, the prize that had lured Sark here to Ulna!

A prize of power.

The search for it had led this slim girl-priestess here, to death, dishonor.

The fear that such a secret might go to Sark, be lost to Ulna, had spurred the old high priest, Namboina, to dark plots and plans for murder.

Power! Haral's fist clenched. The lust for it had driven him on bloody courses that stretched across half this solar system. It had earned him a name, that lust; and then it had put a price on his head to match it, till at last he'd had no choice but to flee out here, beyond all law, to this mad, twisted world of Ulna.

And now--?

Within him his heart was pounding, pounding, like the beat of one of Titan's great _corba dia_; and of a sudden he knew it was destiny that had brought him to the blood and dirt and heat of this foul arena.

His own dark destiny that had marked him out from day of birth to carve an empire....

As from afar, he heard Sark's furious voice lashing out at Kyla: "Defy me, will you? Then so be it!" The raider surged up, half out of the riding-chair. Savagely, he slapped the slim girl-priestess across the face, so hard that his webbed fingers left great welts of white and scarlet. "To the ring with her! To the ring!"

The _Pervods_ jerked Kyla back. Roughly, they dragged her to the fenced ring that served as pit for the arena and threw her in.

In his turn, the blue man shifted. The tension was running high within him now, locked in the icy bands of iron-nerved control. Once more, he surveyed the howling crowd and Sark's mongrel raider crewmen, then smiled to himself with dark, reckless mirth.

Fat face still livid, Sark sank back into the depths of his riding-chair. "Who's first?" he cried. "Who wants to test the brave priestess?"

* * * * *

A shout burst forth from a hundred savage throats. A churning mass of nightmare forms of life thrust forward.

But before the raider chief could even make a choice, a huge, hairy, heavy-thewed Uranian _dau_ was charging to the fence. Full seven feet tall he stood, and he bowled the others from his path like _byul_-balls, a living avalanche of lust. Leaping high in the air, he caught the top strand of the cable and swung up and over, dropping into the arena like some monstrous, many-armed Earth gorilla.

The girl called Kyla stared at the creature as if paralyzed with horror. She did not even raise her hands.

"I give you your last thought as a chaste priestess!" Sark cried, taunting. "You shared your secret with another--the high priest, him they call Namboina! He, too, knows where Xaymar's crypt lies hidden! So all your stubbornness has gained you nothing, for I'll tear the truth from him even though you die here!"

Kyla's tragic eyes went wide--shocked, half-disbelieving.

Haral breathed deep. The tension was a tight knot in his stomach now. His hand grew sweaty against the light-lance.

Slavering, the Uranian shambled towards Kyla. The mad din of the crowd grew deafening.

A churning excitement boiled within the blue warrior. This was the moment for which he'd come; this was the final peak of crisis.

The _dau_ lunged.

In one smooth flow of motion, Haral whipped up the light-lance. Its beam speared out, stabbing at the _dau_.

The lumbering creature stumbled and swerved, twisting in a sudden, agonized frenzy. Smoke curled from the matted hair of its massive torso. It tottered--fell back a step--another--another. Then, arms and legs jerking spasmodically, head out of control, it crumpled into the gory dirt of the arena and lay twitching.

A thunderous, stupefied silence fell upon the crowd. Creatures from the far-flung planets of the whole solar system stared in blank disbelief.

Then, suddenly, the shocked spell broke; and Sark was on his feet and shrieking, "Seize him! Kill him! Blast him down!"

The mob surged forward.

But now Haral was moving too, booting his great blue _hwalon_ dragon into the screaming throng, clawing and slashing and trampling. A force ray struck him a hammer blow between the shoulders, but its impact broke on the heavy copronium armor and he paid it no heed. His light-lance blazed--again; again. A _Pervod_ fell. A _Malya_ writhed back in his death throes.

Then the _hwalon_ was surging against the fence that bounded the arena. The blue man roared, "Kyla--!" And, to the crowd: "Back! Back--! Stand back or die!"

The wave of bodies broke. The milling mass gave way.

Savagely, Haral slashed at the cables with his lance-beam.

* * * * *

Snapping like tight-drawn strings, they parted. Already, beyond, the girl-priestess Kyla was running up beside him. Sweeping low in the saddle, he caught her arm and lifted her bodily to a place in front of him astride the _hwalon_.

But if the crowd, the rabble, was falling back, Sark's raiders now were forming.

Again Haral spurred the _hwalon_--driving it forward, straight at the mutant chieftain.

"You--Sark! Call off your pack if you want to live!" he cried.

He leveled the light-lance, like a helium hammer to drive home his words.

Sark's face took on the color of the molten purple mud in Mercury's _sotol_ swamps. Spasmodically, he clutched the switch set in his chair-arm. His voice, his body, shook with seething fury. "Who are you, _chitza_, that you should come so long a way to die?"

Haral brought the _hwalon_ to a halt, so close to the raider chief that the lance's ray-head gouged Sark's gross midriff.

"They call me Haral," he slashed back fiercely. "Perhaps you've heard the name--if they ever let you pause to listen where warriors spoke. As for dying, I'll meet that when it comes. But not from you, Sark. Not here; not now."

The raider's webbed fingers flexed and clenched. His fat-rimmed eyes glinted like murderous Titanian diamonds set in flesh.

"Haral--?" A sneer contorted his fat face. "A raider without a ship. A space tramp soaked in _kabat_." He bared his teeth. "You fool! What chance do you think you have? My men surround you, ready to blast you!"

Haral laughed aloud. "And what happens to the woman--Xaymar's priestess, Kyla?" he challenged harshly. "Her body's pressed next to mine. Can your blasters kill me, and let her live? Can they burn my armor through, yet leave her still unharmed?" Again he laughed, and the fierce recklessness he felt poured out in hot, slashing words. "No, Sark! You can't afford to have her die, no matter how you'd shame her or abuse her to break her spirit and make her speak. For though you talk of the old high priest, Namboina, you can't know for sure how much she told him. Your crew hasn't even managed to catch him. So if this woman dies, it may well be that your only chance for the goddess Xaymar's secret will die with her!"

In the same instant, he wondered bleakly what would happen if he'd guessed Sark and the situation wrong.

* * * * *

A veil seemed to fall across the raider's eyes. When he spoke, his voice had lost its fury. Now it was gentle again, almost--low-pitched, persuasive, as it had been when he first talked to Kyla.

"I've heard the tales they tell of you, Haral, and they all say that you're mad--mad with ambition, mad with daring. You want the whole universe for your own, they say, and you'll throw your own life on the block to claim it. But even ambition and daring can go too far."

He paused and eyed Haral. Then, when the blue man made no answer, he went on again. The persuasive note in his voice grew stronger.

"Can't you see what you're doing, warrior? I'm _gar_ of the raiders. If I let you carry off this woman, it means the end of me. Every _stabat_ on the spaceways will say, 'Sark has lost his strength. Sark has let Haral take a woman from him.' Even my own crews would mutiny against me."

"And so--?"

"So I cannot let you go, Haral. No matter what the cost, I must kill you. If not now, then later. If you take the woman, you must die!"

Haral could feel his stomach muscles quiver. The menace that radiated out from Sark hung over him like some deadly cloud.

Baring his own teeth in a death's-head grin, he dug the light-lance deeper into Sark's rolls of flesh.

He said: "If the things you say are true, _Gar_ Sark, then I must kill you now, before you have the chance to slay me." He allowed himself the luxury of a thin, wry smile. "In fact, perhaps it would be best that way. With you dead, your men might pick me as their leader...."

Silence echoed for a moment long as eternity, while their eyes locked in a fierce, interminable battle.

Then, slowly, Sark smiled and shook his head. His webbed fingers caressed the switch set in his chair-arm.

"You'll never kill me, warrior," he answered Haral. "I have a reason for this riding-chair, a reason beyond mere comfort."

Haral said nothing.

"This switch"--the raider closed his hand about it--"connects with the box that hangs beneath me. A cymosynthesizer box, you may have guessed."

"A cymosynthesizer--?"

"A very special kind of cymosynthesizer, warrior." Sark chuckled grimly. "The multiplying waves of energy it radiates are synthesized and focused on the core of this pygmy planetoid of Ulna. When they strike it, they'll disrupt its whole atomic structure and set up a disintegrative chain reaction."

Haral stared at him, unbelieving. "You mean--?"

"I mean that I hold the power to destroy this whole world within my hand!" Sark cried in sudden, explosive anger. "This is my protection against you and all others! I have but to throw this switch, and Ulna itself will be torn asunder--and you and the woman and all else with it! If I die, you die, also! That is my answer to you, _chitza_!"

* * * * *

Haral said tightly: "You lie! No cymosynthesizer can set up an initiating wave strong enough to tear apart a whole planet!"

"Then try me! Make me prove it!" the raider chieftain spat. "It's simple, warrior! Just trigger a beam from your light-lance through me! As I die, I'll still throw the switch, and there will be your answer!"

Haral sat very still. He was gripping his lance's shaft so hard that the very bones of his fingers ached. A thin rill of sweat ran down his spine. Yet he could not fight off the spell of shock that gripped him.

As if sensing it, Sark spoke once more in coaxing tones: "You make your task hard, warrior. There is an easier way. Give up this madness, this trying to beat me and destroy me. Daring is a virtue I, too, admire. Stay with me and I'll make you a captain in my fleet, give you a ship so you can raid again. Then, when I've won this thrice-cursed Xaymar's secret, together we'll reach out across the universe to bring all planets into our power. Or, if it's the woman you want,"--he laughed his smirking, obscene laugh--"why, as soon as she's told me the things I want to know, I'll let you have her--"

Haral felt Kyla's slim body stiffen against him. A tremor ran through her.

His answer to Sark came almost without volition. "No."

"What--?"

The spell was broken, now. The recklessness was back, and the fierce surge of ambition.

That, and something more ... a something Haral could not quite touch.

He laughed aloud. "I'm leaving now, Sark!" he cried. "I'm leaving, and I'm taking the woman with me. Blast us if you will!"

The blandness fell from Sark. He half rose from his seat, his face contorted. "You _chitza_--!"

Haral laughed again. "Blast, Sark!" he mocked. "But if you do, remember--your chance for the girl dies with me!"

"_Stabat! Zanat! Starbo_--"

"Go ahead, great _gar_! Blast us! Take your chances on what you can learn from old Namboina!"

Slowly, then, Sark sank back into his chair. His eyes were like live coals, incredibly baleful.

"Go!" he choked thickly. "Go, for now, you _chitza_! Take your woman and your _hwalon_ and your light-lance! My day will come, and when it does, you'll pray for a death that will not answer! You and the woman--you'll share your agony together, and in the end I'll still claim Xaymar's secret--"

Haral said: "Perhaps. Or perhaps it will be you who rots in hell instead."

Bleakly, he wheeled the _hwalon_; and to the crowd he shouted, "There's death in my lance for the man that follows!" Then, weapon ready, the girl close against him, heedless of the steaming hate and curses of the mob that parted before him, he rode away.