Ten steps he took before he was discovered. Ten steps, with the Nubian at his heels, great battle-ax ready.
Then the wolves saw him and sprung up, shouting.
Simultaneously Malric called an order. His voice penetrated knife-keen through the tumult, and silence fell. The baron sat motionless, a little frown between his eyes, watching the two interlopers.
“Well?” he demanded. “Who are you?” And he cast a swift glance at Delphia, whose slight start had been betraying.
“My name matters little,” Raynor said. “I bring you a message from a certain Ghiar.”
“Ghiar!”
A repressed whisper shuddered through the outlaws. There was fear in it, and bitter hatred.
“What is this message?” Malric demanded.
“That you free this girl.”
The baron’s youthful face was bland.
“Is that all?” he asked.
Raynor was conscious of a feeling of disappointment. He had expected some other reaction—what, he did not know. But Malric’s calm passivity baffled him.
The baron waited. When no answer came, he made a quick gesture. And up from the board leaped armed men, shouting, blades bared. They poured down upon Raynor and on Eblik crouching behind him, gargoyle face twisted in battle lust.
So this was what came of warlock’s promises! Raynor grinned bitterly, whipped out his sword—and remembered the talisman. What had Ghiar said?
“If he refuses, turn the amulet. Let him gaze into the Sign of the Mirror!”
The foremost man was almost upon him as Raynor
flung up his hand, the talisman cupped within it. From the mirror darted a ray of light—needle-thin, blindingly brilliant.
It struck full in the outlaw’s face. It probed deep—deep!
Instantly a mask of stark, frightful horror replaced the look of savagery. The man halted, stood frozen and motionless as a statue, his eyes like those of a tortured animal.
Like a soundless whisper in Raynor’s brain came the memory of Ghiar’s words:
“The gaze of the Basilisk chills you….”
And now from the mirror in the talisman pale bright rays were streaming, cold as white fires, unearthly as the arrows of the fabled Moon-goddess. And like arrows, too, they flamed swiftly through the air, seeking and finding their marks; and one by one Malric’s men stiffened and stood frozen.
The last was the baron himself. And then the fires of the talisman died and were gone.
“Delphia!” Raynor cried. The girl was already running toward him, down the length of the hall.
“This is sorcery, Prince,” Eblik aid. “And it is evil!”
“It aids us, as least,” Raynor flung at him, and then turned to meet the girl.
And halted—staring.
A sudden icy chill had dropped down upon the great hall. The lamps dimmed swiftly and faded into utter darkness.
Through the midnight black Raynor heard Delphia scream. He sprang forward, cursing.
His foot struck a prostrate body. He bent, and searching fingers found a man’s bearded chin.
“Delphia!” he shouted.
“Raynor!” she called and her voice seemed to fade and
dwindle as though from infinite distances. “Raynor! Help me!”
The prince’s sword screamed through the dark. He stumbled forward blindly, seeking to penetrate the blackness, and suddenly one hand gripped hard, leathery flesh.
He heard an angry voice.
“Thou meddling fool! You dare to lift steel against the Lord of the Zodiac?”
The voice of—Ghiar! Ghiar, the warlock, come now to Malric’s castle by some evil sorcery.
“Lift steel?” Raynor questioned furiously. “I’ll give you a taste of it, skulking wizard!”
He thrust strongly just as Ghiar pulled free. A pain-filled screech rang out.
But Raynor had lost the wizard in the darkness, and he pushed forward hurriedly, before the oldster could escape.
“Thou fool!” Ghiar’s voice whispered cold with bitter menace. “Blind, rash fool!”
Raynor, groping in the dark, paused suddenly. A strange, greenish glow was beginning to pervade the hall. But its eerie light gave no illumination. Rather, it served only to reveal the source from which it sprang.
A gross and hideous bulk, scaled and shining, loomed above the man. It was shaped like a dragon, and Raynor suddenly remembered the symbol that he had seen on the talisman.
The Sign of the Basilisk!
Only instinct saved the prince then.
He knew, with a dreadful certainty, that to meet the dreadful gaze of the horror would mean death. And before he had time to catch but a flashing glimpse of the Basilisk, Raynor whirled, both hands lifted to his eyes. Through them, darting into the secret fortress of his mind, an icy chill had leaped suddenly—a cold beyond cold, a horror beyond life.
Four strides he took, blinded, his head throbbing with agony. Something soft and heavy caught his foot, and Raynor stumbled and crashed down upon the stones. The world went
out in a blanket of merciful oblivion.
3. THE SIGN OF THE BLACK FLOWER
Raynor awoke suddenly. Sunlight was slanting down through the high oaks, and a gruff voice was cursing steadily in several outlandish dialects of Gobi. The prince realized that he was being carried on someone’s back, and recognized the deep voice as Eblik’s.
He wriggled free, dropped to the ground, and the Nubian turned swiftly, his ugly face twisted with delight.
“Shaitan!” he growled. “The gods be praised! So you’re alive, eh?”
“Just about,” Raynor said wryly. “What’s happened?”
“How should I know? When the lights went out back in Malric’s castle, I blundered out of the hall in the dark, and when I got back Delphia was gone and you were lying on your face with a bump as large as World-Mountain on your head. So I picked you up and headed east.”
“Why east?” Raynor asked. “You have my thanks, but it might have been better to have remained in the castle. Delphia—”
“She’s to the east,” Eblik grunted. “At least, our best chance is to go in that direction. I picked up one of Malric’s men and brought him with us. He woke up an hour ago, and I choked some information from the dog. Ghiar has a citadel in Mirak Forest, in that direction.” He nodded toward the rising sun. “You were cursing the warlock in your sleep, so I guessed a little of what had happened. What now?”
“We go to Ghiar’s citadel,” Raynor decided. “You did well, Eblik.” Swiftly he explained what had happened. “Where are our horses?”
“Shaitan knows. They took fright and ran off. It isn’t far, however.”
“So? Well, I’m beginning to understand now, Eblik. Ghiar used me as a cat’s-paw. Though just how I still cannot understand.”
Raynor pondered. No doubt Ghiar had abducted the girl,
but why had not the warlock stolen her by means of his magic, without seeking Raynor’s aid? Could it be that the wizard had been unable to enter Malric’s castle until someone had opened a gateway for him?
The prince had heard of such beings—creatures that could not enter a house unless they were lifted across the threshold, alien things that could never cross running water. Perhaps the amulet itself had given Ghiar power to materialize in the castle.
Reminded of the talisman, Raynor fumbled in his belt and found the disc there. He examined it with renewed curiosity. In the black jewel the star-point glowed with pale brilliance.
“Well, we go east, then,” Raynor decided. “Come.”
Without further words he set off at a steady, effortless lope that ate up the miles. The giant Nubian paced him easily, swinging his great ax as though in anticipation.
The oak forest stretched far and far, beyond their horizon. Overhead the sun grew hotter, pouring down its rays that would still be blasting upon Gobi when the empire would be not even a memory in the minds of men. But at last, hours later, the trees thinned and the two men found themselves at the top of a long slope that stretched down to the dark waters of a lake.
In the lake’s center was an islet. And on the islet—Ghiar’s citadel.
A citadel of darkness! Blacker than the nighted gulf of Abaddon was the great block of shining stone that towered up to the sky, a single, gigantic, polished oblong of jet, with neither tower nor window to break its grim monotony. No bridge spanned the lake.
The waters were steel-gray; frigid as polar seas they seemed.
On the islet, about the citadel, the ground was carpeted with darkness. The nature of this shadowy stain was a riddle; it was not stone, for now and again a long ripple would shudder across it as the wind sighed past.
The citadel lay in the shelter of a valley, and over all seemed to hang a slumberous, eerie quiet. No sound stirred, save for the wind’s occasional murmuring. And even that was oddly hushed.
Thus might sleep the fabled Elysian Fields, where
the dead who have tasted Lethe wander to and fro, with a half-incurious yearning for lost delights, amid the eternal hush of the shadowland.
With a little shiver Raynor shook off the spell. He strode forward, the Nubian at his side. Eblik said nothing, but his keen barbaric senses guessed that sorcery dwelt in this valley. The black’s eyes were distended; his nostrils twitched as though seeking to scent something that dwelt beyond the threshold of his realization.
As the two went down the slope a dim, unreal perfume seemed to rise and drift about them, an odor sensed rather than actually scented. And a drowsy languor made Raynor’s eyes heavy.
Truly dark magic guarded Ghiar’s citadel!
They reached the lake’s shore. They circled swiftly, and discovered there was no means of crossing to the islet.
“Short of building a raft,” Raynor observed, “which would take too long, I see nothing to it but a swim.”
“Aye,” Eblik assented, readily enough, but his somber eyes dwelt on the motionless gray waters. “Yet it would be well to have our blades ready, Prince.”
A dagger hung at Raynor’s side; he unsheathed this and gripped it between his teeth.
Without a word he dived into the lake, came up yards away, swimming strongly.
And the water was cold—cold! Frigid beyond anything Raynor had even known.
The dreadful chill of it lanced deep into his bones, making them grind together with the sheer pain of the unearthly cold.
Looking down, he found that the water was opaque. A uniform dull grayness made it seem as though he was floating on clouds. What mystery might lurk in these hidden depths he could not guess; but at least nothing rose to halt his progress.
The lake was not wide; yet Raynor was curiously exhausted when at last he waded through shallows and on to dry land. Eblik was not far behind. Now, not far away, Ghiar’s citadel rose blackly cryptic before them.
And at their feet were—the Black Flowers!
The ground could not be seen, so thickly they grew. A living carpet of velvety darkness they covered the islet, weirdly beautiful,
with stems and leaves and soft petals all of the same glossy black.
Ever and anon a soft wind whispered past, and waves rippled across the jet sea.
Save for the wind, it was utterly silent.
The two men moved forward. The flowers brushed against their ankles, and a soft cloud of disturbed pollen hung like smoke in their wake. And ever the insidious perfume crept into their nostrils—stronger now, vaguely repellent, and redolent of unknown and forbidden things.
His gaze riveted on the citadel, Raynor did not at first realize that he was making little progress. Then he glanced down quickly, or tried to. But his muscles seemed to respond with unwillingness, and it was with a genuine effort that he succeeded in looking down. The black flowers seemed to be swaying toward him; around his feet the smoky darkness hung.
The dim haze fingered up, questing!
Raynor tried to spring forward. His feet kicked up a great cloud of pollen, and it shrouded him like a pall.
He was unconscious of the fact that he had halted and was swaying to and fro, slowly.
Over his vision a dim curtain dropped.
He seemed to fall very slowly.
The black flowers leaned toward him hungrily. A velvet blossom brushed his cheek; another seemed to cup his mouth as though in dreadful simulacrum of a kiss. Raynor breathed the dark perfume of the flower’s heart….
Of a sudden veils were lifted, and he saw unimaginable things. A blaze of sound and light and color swirled into being. Trumpets shrilled in his ears, and he heard the thunder of high walls crumbling to ruin. Confused visions of the past came to Raynor, and he lived again, dimly as in a dream, things he remembered and things he had forgotten.
And always the strange, deadly perfume was strong in
his nostrils; but he felt no urge to move. The soporific spell of the Lethean flowers held him bound in fetters of dark magic.
It was pleasant to lie here, to rest, and to remember.
Then a rough hand gripped Raynor’s arm; he was lifted, and immediately fell again heavily. From an immense distance came a harsh, despairing cry.
The voice of Eblik!
The sound pierced through the mists that shrouded Prince Raynor’s brain. The Nubian was in danger, had cried to his companion for help. Realization of this gave the prince strength as he battled down the terrible urge to remain motionless, to sleep, and at last Raynor won. The effort left him sweating and exhausted, but abruptly the visions faded and were gone.
He looked upon Ghiar’s citadel, and the exhausted islet in the lake.
With a sobbing curse he staggered upright. At his feet lay the unconscious Nubian, and Raynor lifted the black to his shoulders. Then, holding his breath, he plunged forward across the dark sea, even at that moment of mad turmoil feeling an odd sense of sadness at the thought of the jet, velvety beauty he crushed underfoot.
A wind rippled the blooms; they seemed to sigh as in farewell.
The Sign of the Black Flower was conquered!
4. THE SIGN OF THE SERPENT
Now Ghiar’s citadel loomed above them. Grimly enigmatic it towered there featureless, with no gate or window breaking the dull monotony of its gloomy structure. Sick and dizzy, Raynor plunged on. And, quite suddenly, he realized that he had been wrong. A portal gaped in the high wall just before him.