Chapter IV

The coleoptera were drawing their noose ever tighter now. A killer cordon, they ringed in Kyla and Haral. The rustle of their giant wing-sheaths, borne on the night wind, whispered of death. The great, flesh-rending mandibles clacked like the distant rattle of dry bones.

Flat on his belly amid this rubble that once had been a mighty city, the blue warrior let his head sink forward onto his arms. He closed his eyes, and weariness welled up in him, a dull, relentlessly-rising tide.

Pain throbbed along his whole left side, and blood still dripped from his numb left hand. Silently--absently, almost--he touched the shoulder-plate of his armor, probing the perforations and the wound.

Then a sound of spilling gravel came through the darkness. He looked up sharply.

A dozen yards to one side, one of the great scarlet beetles was clambering atop a heap of crumbling stone. Its wing-sheaths scraped harshly--a rasping, off-key note.

Kyla leaned close. Her words came, a fearful whisper, barely loud enough to hear: "Lift your helmet, blue man! Listen to the things the coleopteron tells--but carefully, lest its mind control should seize you...."

Cautiously, Haral tilted back his battered copronium headpiece. It had rendered strange service in its day, that scarred old helm; but none stranger than this. For by some weird clash between its metal and certain electrocephalic wave-pulsations, it guarded his brain from the probing beetle minds, just as Kyla's bucket-like Ulnese heaume--designed for the purpose--guarded hers.

Now, as Haral lifted the helmet, thought-vibrations washed in on him in throbbing waves: "Man-things, man-things! Find the man-things! Kill the man-things! Kill, kill, kill!"

A new vibration slashed through, fiercely urgent: "Blood! Blood! Here! They came this way!"

"Kill! Kill! Kill!"

Already the coleoptera were surging forward. Antennae outthrust like lance-points, Q-rays probing, they combed the murky waste--each rise, each hollow. Their feet slithered through the rubble with sounds like the writhings of Venus' great snake-things in dry leaves. The acrid stink of their hate crept on the breeze in biting tendrils.

* * * * *

Haral cast a longing glance back towards his _hwalon_, still standing at bay amid the crags where they had lost it in their last swift, clashing contact with the beetles.

But darting Q-rays hemmed in the dragon. And here and there between, a head, a leg, a thorax showed.

Haral bit down hard. The coleoptera were hoping they could tempt him to try to regain the _hwalon_.

For if he tried, he'd die in seconds.

Kyla crept close against him. Her voice shook: "I've lost my way, Haral. Even if the beetles were to leave us, I'd not know how to go."

For an aching moment Haral lay still. "I guessed as much," he said at last. "This running and fighting has pulled us from our path."

"If we could only find one of the pylons of which the old books spoke--"

"Yes. If." Grimly, the blue man fumbled the ray-pistol from his holster and shoved it into Kyla's hand. He gave no sign that he had even caught the tears, the desperation, creeping into her voice. "Here. Take this."

"What--?"

Haral held his voice flat, without emotion. "You'll need some weapon. The ray-gun will do as well as any." He settled the helmet more firmly on his head and took a new grip on his light-lance. "Come on!"

Twisting, dragging the light-lance beside him, he wormed his way towards the nearest of the skeletal shafts that rose like gravestones over this dead city, last monuments to a civilization fallen into dust.

Perhaps the shaft had been part of a building, once--a wall, a buttress, maybe. Now, pillar-like, it stood alone. Gaping holes showed through its mass. Great chunks of rock had fallen, here and there exposing the huge, corroding metal beams that were its core.

They reached its base. Haral pulled himself erect amid the black shadows cloaking the foundation. Wearily, he leaned against a fallen column.

The move brought fragments rattling down.

At the sound, a coleopteron in a nearby hollow came to a sudden halt. For a moment it hesitated, then began to work its way warily towards the shaft.

Kyla said, "Haral--!" in a voice choked with new panic.

"Stay here. Don't move," Haral clipped tightly. "And don't shoot--not unless you have to!"

As he spoke, he levered himself up onto the lowest beam.

More broken stone clattered to the ground below him.

The beetle came forward faster.

* * * * *

Awkwardly, the blue man climbed upward. His left arm was almost useless. The light-lance dragged and got in his way.

Below, the great scarlet insect stopped short. Of a sudden its mandibles clacked wildly.

Haral lifted his helmet a fraction. Vibrations poured into his brain: "Blood! Here, here, this way--!"

Cursing, Haral whipped up the light-lance and triggered a beam at the beetle's thorax.

The coleopteron wallowed backward, great wings threshing.

Clutching a vertical girder, again the warrior clambered upward.

Above him, and to one side, a gap that might once have housed a window loomed. Painfully, he worked towards it. His left arm dragged, less help than hindrance. He couldn't seem to get in air. His body rebelled at his brain's commands.

Then, at last, he got a grip on a jagged fragment near the edge of the slot-like opening. With a final, spasmodic effort, he dragged himself up and sprawled on his belly across the masonry.

On the other side of the wall, spread out before him in the shadowy purple of the Ulnese night, lay the heart of the dead city. From this height he could see its plan, its prospect. There, ragged strips that once had been broad avenues radiated out from a central park. There, a spider-web of cross streets showed, linking the great arteries together.

And there, too, were the ruins Kyla called the Triad--the huge, three-winged structure that rose in the park's heart.

Somewhere beneath it lay the shrine of Xaymar, queen of storms, living goddess of all Ulna.

Awe gripped Haral. Silent, brooding, he stared across the fallen splendor.

Such splendor, so far fallen.

These others, who once had walked this mighty city in its day of greatness--they, too, had been strong. They, too, had felt the drive to power.

Now they lay in dust beneath his feet.

And here he sprawled, beset and wounded, driven by a dream on a madman's quest, mayhap to meet death himself in this silent city of the dead.

His weariness welled up once more; engulfed him.

How had Sark put it--"Why have you come so long a way to die?"

Sark, and a dream turned nightmare.

Yet he'd ridden other nightmares in his time, with less to gain and more to lose. That was the meaning of life; the challenge.

There below lay a living goddess; and a priestess waited to guide him to her.

* * * * *

A priestess.... He pondered. Already there was a bond between them, for she had a courage to match her beauty, and courage was one trait he gave full honor, no matter what the cause to which it rallied. And it had taken courage to stand in the bloody mud of that arena, defying Sark.

Sark?... Haral smiled. Sark, too, would have a role to play before this game was done.

Sark had pledged him death. Sark would keep that pledge, unless he fell before the might of Xaymar's vaunted secret.

And as for himself, Haral--?

The battle lines were drawn: On the one hand, power beyond his fondest dreams ... a living goddess ... a lovely priestess.

On the other, Sark and the coleoptera, defeat and death.

What more was there for a fighting man to ask? What better prize for a wanderer to strive for as he carved his way up from the asteroids' bleak want and bondage?

He laughed aloud. His weariness fell away.

Sitting up, turning, he once more gave attention to the swarming scarlet beetles far below him.

Fear of his light-lance was upon them now, it seemed. They hung back, spread out in a menacing arc that centered on his side of the pillar.

Directly below him, Kyla crouched as if frozen, the ray-gun ready in her hand. But as yet the beetles had not come close enough to find her.

Haral shifted.

Like lightning, a Q-ray speared up from an ebon crevice to one side of the shaft.

The range was too great. The beam burned out yards short of Haral. But a flicker of movement betrayed that one of the monster insects now was climbing along the other side. The next ray might strike home.

Again, Haral sought out the Triad, and the great arterial avenue that led to it.

The nearest of the roadways lay within a hundred yards of this column that was his vantage-point. A pylon still thrust its weathered peak skyward on the far side of the thoroughfare.

A pylon: the crumbling, truncated pyramid burned into Haral's brain like a beacon. The very sight of it sent recklessness surging through him.

To Kyla, below, he cried, "Come round the wall, priestess! Come round! Quick!"

Then, cat-like, he twisted, swinging his legs up and through the gap in the masonry. His body arched--catapulting out into space, hurtling groundward along the towering shaft's other face.

But as he plunged, he shifted the light-lance. Bracing it against his body, he gripped its head between his feet and triggered it on, full strength. Its broad force beam blazed forth, straight at the ground below.

Like a flexible, compressing shaft of radiant energy, it slowed his plunge. Balancing skillfully, he rode the beam on down.

* * * * *

The force of the landing made him wince. But at least, for the moment, he was free of the coleoptera, though even now he could hear the scurrying of their hairy feet in the dirt as they raced to head him off.

Whirling, he ran along the base of the shaft.

As he reached the corner, Kyla came stumbling toward him from the other side of the shaft, scrambling over the ruins, debris, in desperate haste. Two huge beetles, hot for the kill, bore down upon her from behind, closing the gap that separated them from her with every slithering step.

Haral drew back and whipped up the light-lance.

Running full-tilt, the slim girl burst from the shadows, the coleoptera close at her heels.

Haral triggered the light-lance. Its beam slashed through the night. The foremost beetle drew into a writhing ball under its impact, rolling crazily through the rubble. The second fell back, its forelegs half burned off.

The blue man pivoted and ran after Kyla. Catching her by the arm, he half-dragged her with him towards the avenue.

Ahead, the ground leveled off. The broad expanse that had been the roadway spread before them.

Beyond it loomed the pylon.

Behind, the rustle of coleopteron wing-sheaths, the furious fluttering of the vestigial wings themselves, came loud as the rasp of branches in a storm-tossed forest, closer and closer.

Haral shoved the priestess on towards the roadway. Then, boldly, he turned and brought up the light-lance.

The coleoptera broke. Scrambling wildly, they rushed for cover.

"What, you _sabars_? You fear to meet my lance?" Haral shouted the words, even though he knew the beetles could not hear nor understand. Laughter boiled up in him--the ringing, defiant laughter that was not so much mirth as lust for battle.

But already the insects' Q-ray tubes were blinking. He had no choice but to wheel and again run after Kyla.

And as he ran, a new sound slashed through to him: the familiar keening blast of space-ship carrier craft lancing through the night.

Haral shot one swift glance upward. He glimpsed slim, silvery streaks ... streaks that were carriers in flight.

Sark's carriers--?

Haral cursed aloud. Panting, staggering with fatigue and the weight of his heavy copronium armor, he stumbled through the avenue's broken stone. Once he fell. But Kyla's ray-gun blazed above him, holding back the beetles till he could lurch up and wallow onward.

Then, at last, there was the pylon ... the yawning entrance at its base.

"Hurry!" Kyla cried. "They gain upon us!"

A Q-ray sang its shining song of death too near at hand.

* * * * *

The blue man threw all his strength into one last effort. Together, he and the girl ran through the entry, into the blackness.

Haral turned. He laced his back-track with the light-lance's searing beam.

The beetles halted.

"This way," said Kyla. Her hand gripped Haral's. In silence, he followed her further and further into the pylon's pitchy depths.

Now they walked on a strange, entangling surface that crunched brittly beneath their feet.

Haral flicked on his lance's illumination cell just long enough to glimpse the scene about them.

A prickling ran up and down his spine. For they walked a corridor of death, a passage carpeted with bones ... the bones of those who once had ruled this mighty city. A thousand skulls stared up at them, a hollow-eyed horror. Skeletons spread in heaps and tangles, rising on all sides like some rank, evil fungus.

Kyla's voice came through the darkness: "You wonder why we hate all aliens, warrior? Once, a thousand years ago, this was our proudest _Shamon_ city. Then the first ships came out of space to Ulna. They hurled down bombs, and my people sought to hide here from them. But gas came with the bombs--a heavy gas, and deadly. It seeped into these ancient tunnels, and those who survived the blasts, the radiation, died by thousands--yes, by millions...."

The girl's voice broke.

Her horror, her pain, pressed in on Haral. But he dared not let himself think of them.

He said sharply: "This is no time for talk! Any moment, the coleoptera may be upon us. Those ships that passed above us, too--they may have been Sark's. If Namboina's told where Xaymar lies, Sark's men may beat us to her. If we're to find her first, we must go quickly--"

"Yes, quickly!" Again Kyla's trembling hand seized his. She led the way down a long, steep ramp, then on through what seemed endless blackness. "The old books say these tunnels end beneath the Triad. And then, below that--there lies our sleeping goddess, Xaymar!"

On they toiled, and on. Twice, in the ebon murk, they heard the muffled rattle of coleopteran mandibles. Once, the beetles' acrid stench rose rank and close into their nostrils.

"Pray to your gods, warrior, that they do not guess our goal in time to head us off," Kyla whispered hoarsely.

"Pray to your own, and my light-lance!" Haral answered harshly. He shifted, striving to ease the pain that still throbbed out from his wounded shoulder. Numbly, he wondered how much longer he could go on.

They came out of the tunnel, then, into a vast, echoing subterranean chamber.

"Now we must have light to find our way," the priestess said. "Already we are beneath the Triad."

Haral flicked on his lance's illumination cell.

* * * * *

The room stretched as far as its beam would throw. Other tunnels debouched from the walls on every side.

"This way," said Kyla. "Xaymar's shrine lies beneath the central staircase."

Together, they picked a path through more jumbled bones to the middle of the vast concourse, then descended down the stair they found there in spiral after spiral.

As they went down, the stink of the coleoptera grew steadily stronger.

"If this should be a trap--" Haral began.

"There is no other way," the priestess answered.

The staircase ended in a circular room. High ledges lined its walls. In the center stood a great bronze ball, high as a tall man's head and set in a base of polished stone. Markings were etched upon it, markings that matched the configurations of this wild outlaw world of Ulna.

But slashing even deeper were other markings--the stylized images of the lightning that were Xaymar's symbol.

"A strong man can roll the globe within its base," Kyla told Haral. She studied the markings, chose a spot. "Here is the place. Now spin it upward."

New uneasiness came upon Haral. The muscles along the back of his neck felt stiff and drawn with tension.

He wondered if it could be his weariness, his wound.

But he could not shrug it off.

He said tightly. "This smells of danger, Kyla. There's trouble here."

Once more, he swept the lance's illumination beam across the room.

A long smear on the floor shimmered. Haral dropped to one knee, touched it. "Look! This is wet, and not with water! It's more like the blood of the coleoptera!"

A tremor ran through Kyla. "Then hurry! Quick! Spin the globe!"

The blue man straightened. Narrow-eyed, uneasy, he laid the lance aside. Then, bracing himself, he put his unwounded shoulder to the globe and heaved at it with all his might.

It moved a bare inch; then another.

He strained again.

Slowly, the great sphere turned. The edge of a slot cut in its under side came into view--a crack that widened as the globe rolled within the base, till an oblong orifice lay exposed like a tunnel mouth leading down into the footing.

Haral started to step back.

But, of a sudden, a faint sound came--the muffled ring of metal against stone.

Haral lunged for the light-lance.

But a harsh, unfamiliar voice slashed in upon him--a voice from atop the high, flat ledge that lined the walls: "Drop it, _chitza_! Drop the light-lance!"

From a different angle, another voice rang: "Quick! Drop it!"

A third: "Just one false move...."

An icy knot gathered in the pit of Haral's stomach. He let the lance fall.

* * * * *

To his right, a _Pervod_ rose into view upon the ledge, ray-gun murderously ready. A squat, tentacled Thorian appeared to his left. Sounds told him others were getting up behind him.

Desperately, he looked to Kyla.

But she stood rigid, fists clenched at her sides. The ray-pistol he'd given her had disappeared.

He turned back to the _Pervod_. "Well, finish it!" he cried. "You're here to burn us down. Get it done and be on your way!"

But the _Pervod_ didn't answer.

Instead, there was laughter ... ghoulish, obscene laughter, laughter Haral had heard before.

A chill shook the blue man.

He wished he could be sure it was only his wound.

Again the laugh echoed; again. It came from the staircase, swelling louder and louder with each passing second.

And then, there were more _Pervods_, more Thorians, more _Malyas_ and Martians and mutants. There, too, was _Gar_ Sark's famed Uranian riding-chair sweeping into view on its anti-gravitational direction beam.

There was Sark.

He leered at Haral. Never had the menace stood out in his fat face more sharply.

"Burn you down--?" He repeated the blue man's words as if he liked their flavor. "No, no, you _starbo_. I'd not do that. Not now; not ever. It's far too quick a way for you to die."

"You'll do your worst, so do as you like." Haral forced himself to shrug despite the pain.

Sark smirked. "Of course. But first there's another task we must attend."

"Another task--?"

"Yes, now that you two have opened up the way." Sark chuckled, deep in his throat. His fat-rimmed eyes gleamed like tiny, vicious stars. "We go now to waken the living goddess, Xaymar, queen of storms, so that she can deliver her secret into my hands!"