Chapter III

They rode fast and in silence--first skirting the outskirts of the town; then plunging full-tilt into the tangled maze that was the native quarter.

The Ulno Haral had hired on the chance he'd need someone to hide the _hwalon_ was already waiting at the appointed place.

But the blue man rode on past the primitive with no sign of recognition, pausing instead around the next corner, by the entrance to a blackly burrow-like dead-end alley.

There he let the girl called Kyla down. For the first time since their escape, he spoke to her: "We'll take cover now, for a little while, priestess. Wait here in the shadows for me till I can hide my dragon. It won't take long--ten _samori_, maybe."

Wordless, eyes inscrutable, the lovely _Shamon_ nodded.

Haral flashed her a tense smile. Then, wheeling the _hwalon_, he rode back in the direction from which they'd come.

But the instant he was out of sight around the corner, he dropped from the saddle and waved up the Ulno to take the nightmare steed.

Another moment, and he was peering warily towards the spot where he'd left Kyla.

But already the slim young priestess had abandoned her post. She was hurrying away, instead--running off down the narrow, crooked street, just as he'd gambled that she would.

It was ever dusk in these cramped warrens, where the yellow sky showed only straight up. Now, too, the purple Ulnese night drew near at hand. Black rivers of shadow were taking form at the bases of the buildings.

Taking advantage of every unevenness and entryway and patch of murk, Haral followed Kyla.

The girl led him a dizzy chase through jumbled streets and alleys, a world of strange smells and sounds and dull-witted, blank-eyed, two-headed Ulnos. Twice, only the glint of her long, blonde, _Shamon_ hair kept him from losing her.

Then, abruptly, she halted.

Giving no attention to the vaguely-curious glances of nearby Ulnos, Haral drew back into the angle where two buildings came together. Pressed flat to the wall, he watched while Kyla peered this way and that, as if searching for some sign of pursuit.

A moment later she disappeared into the shadow-shrouded entrance of a shabby building.

Swiftly, Haral ran after her. But instead of approaching the door, he slipped down a narrow cleft between the place she'd entered and the one next to it.

* * * * *

A slot of window showed above him. Bracing his back against one wall, his feet against the other, he levered himself swiftly upward till he could peer through the casement.

It opened into an empty room.

A kick from one mailed foot burst it open. Another moment, and Haral himself stood inside.

Across the room was a door. Moving silently to it, he opened it a crack and listened.

From down the hall that ran outside came faint sounds of movement. Peering through the gloom, Haral caught a glint of light. Then a door opened. More light flooded out. He glimpsed Kyla in silhouette as she left the one room and went into another.

Now light blazed from the second room. Then that door closed, and there were sounds of running water.

Haral smiled thinly and loosened his ray-gun in its holster. Quickly, quietly, he walked down the hall to the room from which the girl had come.

Bleak and bare and windowless, it was sparsely furnished with a cot, table and two chairs. The clothes Kyla had worn--the cloak, the tablet, all her priestess' habit--were strewn across the cot. One of the self-sealing plastic boxes such as was used on Ulna for packing garments lay open on the table.

Across the hall, the sounds of running water ceased.

Silently, Haral stepped on into the room and behind the door. He caught the click of a latch: then the firm rhythm of Kyla's footsteps as she came towards this chamber where he stood in hiding.

She was humming softly as she entered--a weirdly lilting tune Haral had never heard before. Now, too, she wore the scant, filmy garments so favored by _Shamon_ women. No indication that she was one of Xaymar's priestesses remained. While Haral watched in silence, she picked up a comb and began to smooth her shimmering, waist-long wealth of silken hair.

Haral said: "You're very lovely, Kyla--you treacherous little _slazot_!"

The girl whirled, her eyes suddenly big with terror. Her hand clutched her throat. Her breasts rose and fell too fast.

Her lips moved: "You--You...."

Haral poured acid into his voice: "My name's Haral, Kyla. Remember? I'm the man who saved your pretty carcass from Sark's arena not so very long ago."

The priestess sank into a chair. Her eyes closed, as if she were praying, or perhaps trying to blot out the very sight of the blue man from her brain.

Tight-lipped, Haral strode to her. He caught her chin and tilted back her head.

"Did you think I risked my life for you for nothing, priestess?" he clipped grimly. "Some say I'm worthless. But in my way, I still value my head."

* * * * *

Kyla's eyes opened. They were very large and innocent. "Truly, I am grateful, blue warrior...."

"Grateful--?" Haral brought up the crooked forefinger that held her chin so savagely her head snapped back. "Yes, you're grateful! So grateful you could hardly wait till my back was turned before you ran away! So grateful you'd gladly leave me to face Sark's tender mercies alone, so long as you got to cover!"

"But, warrior--You do not understand. I have a mission--a duty bigger than you or me, or the debt of gratitude I owe you--"

"Duty--?" Haral smashed one mailed fist into the palm of the other. "Will your duty save my neck? Will it halt Sark's crewmen as they haunt me and harry me and hunt me down?"

The girl's lips trembled. The violet eyes dodged his. "But--but--what would you have me do--?"

"You know what I want!" Haral gripped her shoulders. "My death warrant's sealed. You heard Sark say it. I've got just one chance--one, and one only. With your Xaymar's secret, it may be that I can smash Sark before he smashes me--"

"No--"

"That's what I want! I want the secret--your goddess, your queen of storms--"

"But I cannot--"

"You can! You will!" Fiercely, he shook her. "Where is she, Kyla? Where does she lie, this woman-goddess, Xaymar?"

The girl went limp in his grasp. Tears brimmed her eyes.

Slowly, Haral straightened. He let go the priestess' slim shoulders. "Can't you see?" he grated tightly. "Can't you understand? Now, this very moment, Sark's hunting for your doddering high priest, Namboina. When he catches him--and he will catch him, have no doubt of that--he'll tear your goddess's hiding-place from him like a tooth from the socket. Then where will you stand? What good will all your talk of duty do you? Would it not be better--"

"No." Even though Kyla's lips still trembled, there was no compromise in her tone. She flicked away her tears, and her back drew very straight. Her eyes met Haral's--defiant; proud and steady as his own.

"No, blue man," she repeated. "If helping me costs you your life, I'm sorry. But my duty lies with Ulna and with Xaymar. Do what you will; I'll tell you nothing."

"And Namboina? What of him? Will his loyalty match yours when Sark stretches him out for a taste of torture?"

"Sark has not yet caught Namboina."

* * * * *

As it had in the arena, admiration now touched Haral. Steel lay sheathed in the velvet of this _Shamon_ girl's slim, soft body. He could not but respect its temper.

Yet he dared not let her know his thoughts.

Instead, coldly, he drew his ray-gun from its holster. "Then I have no choice...."

"You'll kill me, you mean--?" There was contempt in the girl's voice, the twist of her lips. "So in the end you're not so different from _Gar_ Sark, after all."

Haral smiled thinly. "Say rather that I know enough to bow to reality when I face it. If I cannot win this battle, then I must come to terms another way." He let his smile broaden, building up impact for the climax. "But not by killing you, Priestess Kyla. That truly would get me nothing."

"Then what--?"

Haral shrugged. With careful casualness he said, "Sark still might strike a bargain for you."

"_Sark--!_"

The shock in the girl's voice stabbed at Haral. Fear was in her eyes now--the bright, shiny fear of those nightmare eternities she stood helpless in Sark's arena.

But the blue man held his face immobile. "You leave me no choice," he clipped. "I must either have the lightning-force, the secret of your goddess Xaymar, or I must buy back my life from Sark. Since I lack the stomach to force the secret from you, that leaves only Sark for me to turn to. You surely understand."

He watched the sickness come to Kyla's face, then. Her eyes closed. Her tongue flicked at her lips.

At long last she looked at him again. Dully, she said, "Put away your weapon, warrior. I am vanquished."

Wordless, Haral slipped the ray-gun back into its holster.

Kyla said: "I'd hoped this might have another ending, blue man. When you rode out in the face of _Gar_ Sark and all his might to save me, my heart leaped, and strange feelings woke within me, here." She touched her breast. "I saw you as a Galahad of the spaceways, a valiant who fought for right and honor instead of booty. But now I see you true. You're as the rest--greedy, blood-thirsty, driven by hate and a lust for power."

A knife seemed to twist deep in Haral's vitals. He did not speak.

* * * * *

The girl's great, tragic eyes stayed set upon him. "Yet, blue man, you saved my life. There is indeed a debt of gratitude I owe you. I'll pay it now...."

She rose; came close to him. Her hand touched the heavy copronium brassart that sheathed his upper arm.

"There's a reason our living goddess Xaymar has lain sleeping through all these years of Ulna's sorrow, blue man," she told him tensely. "Did you think my people, my proud, unbending _Shamon_, would have suffered all the insults and degradation you alien raiders brought here with you had it not been so? Can you vision us submitting to your despoilment while we held an invincible weapon in our hands, unless the dangers that lay in unsheathing that weapon were even more dreadful than the worst that you, in your crude butchery, could offer?"

Haral shifted. Frowning, he studied the priestess' shadowed eyes and strain-straught face.

She breathed deep. Her words rushed forth in a flood, a frantic, half-hysterical jumble:

"I'll tell you the secret, warrior! I'll tell you why we left our goddess sleeping through all our hour of need!" Her lips parted. Her voice rose shrilly. "She's mad, that's the reason! Xaymar's mad! Mad with lust and power, and passion! Her beauty was a thing of shining splendor that no man could resist or deny. Each night she took a different lover--and then, at the dawn, at her command, each one was slain! She harnessed the lightning against our enemies--and when our own greatest city refused to send more of its sons to her for slaughter, she smashed it to rubble with her bolts! In her madness, it was she who gave the power of thought to the coleoptera--"

She broke off, laughing wildly. Her face came close to Haral's, her body against his.

"Would you waken her, warrior? Would you be the next to share her couch--and her graveyard? Beside her, Sark ranks as a saint--"

There was a prickling along Haral's spine as he pushed her back. But she still clung to him. He could feel his tension climbing. It was as if Kyla had hypnotized him with her rush of words, her fierce burst of emotion.

He said tightly: "You lie, Kyla! This is some kind of a trick--"

Like magic, her hysteria vanished.

"A trick? Of course! A good one--"

She twisted, and he felt the wrench of his ray-gun being jerked from its holster.

Before he could move, she had its muzzle between his teeth. Her triumphant voice echoed like the ring of steel on steel:

"Your first move will be your last, blue man! You'll die if even a finger twitches!"

Haral stood very still.

From somewhere below came the creak of a door opening, then the muffled slam of its closing.

Kyla laughed. Her eyes sparkled. "Did you speak of Namboina, warrior? Of how Sark would catch him? Yet here he comes now!"

Haral spoke carefully: "Wrong, priestess! Those steps are too quick for old Namboina's!"

* * * * *

Watching her eyes, he could see the doubt flicker, then flare into panic. Her lips parted as she strained to hear. She fell back a step. The ray-gun in her hand was suddenly shaking.

"If there's trouble," Haral observed, "that gun might prove surer in my hand than yours."

"No! Stand back!" the girl cried. "I'll shoot for your face! Your armor won't save you!"

The blue man halted.

The approaching footsteps were closer now--coming lightly, swiftly, towards this room.

Kyla pushed the door half shut, then stepped to its hinge side, gesturing Haral to a place before her. Her face was grey.

Outside the room, the footsteps halted. The door pushed open.

"Kyla--"

It was the voice of a woman--a woman in the garb of Xaymar's order who hurried into the room.

"Lyess--" cried Kyla. The ray-gun sagged in her hand.

The newcomer whirled in fright. Her eyes flicked from the priestess to Haral.

Kyla cried, "Why are you here, Lyess? Where is Namboina?" Her tone held a note of desperation.

"I came to tell you, Kyla--to warn you! Sark has found him! They say the torture is already under way to make him tell where Xaymar lies--"

Unspeaking, Haral looked to Kyla.

Her mouth was working. New tears had come to her eyes. Now, of a sudden, they overflowed and spilled down her cheeks.

Harshly, Haral slashed: "What now, priestess? Do we wait here while Sark tears out Namboina's heart, then goes and wakens your mad woman-goddess Xaymar?"

Slowly, the hand that held the ray-gun lowered, till the weapon hung loose against Kyla's side. Her shoulders, too, slumped. In the stillness, her falling tears made tiny splatting sounds as they hit the floor.

"Kyla, Kyla--!" the other priestess whispered. "You dare not linger! Sark seeks you, too. That is why I came to warn you--"

* * * * *

Again the silence echoed. Then, wearily, Kyla straightened. She shook away the tears. Her mouth stopped quivering.

Never had she been more lovely.

She turned to the blue man: "Haral...."

It came to him, with a queer sort of shock, that it was the first time she had ever called him by his name.

"Yes, Kyla...?"

"I've lost. I wanted Xaymar's secret for my people--this world of ours, this Ulna. But now, that cannot be. The most I can hope is that Sark, at least, shall never have it."

"Yes, Kyla."

"She--Xaymar--lies in the dead land--the land infested by the great thinking beetles, the coleoptera. The road to her crypt is a dangerous road."

"I've traveled dangerous roads before."

"Yes. Danger is in your blood, you aliens. And we of Ulna are weak, so weak...."

Gently, Haral said: "There's little time, Kyla. Namboina may be babbling all he knows already."

"Yes, and the way is long." Wearily, then, the girl held out the ray-gun to him. "You'll need this more than I, along the road that we must travel." She sighed. "You see, Haral? Destiny is on your side. In the end, you are the winner."