Empire of Women & One of our Cities is Missing (Armchair Fiction Double Novels Book 25) (4 page)

ON THE
great plateau above the city—where the fleet lay while the troops disembarked,
formed ranks, marched down the steep highway into the city—a council of war was
being held.
 
In the salon of Tor
Branthak’s flagship officers stood at attention as the bearded Regent gave
final orders for the occupation of Alid.
 
One by one the officers saluted, wheeled, left on the double to join the
waiting troops.
 

When the
room was quite empty, Gan Alain found
himself
alone,
facing the quizzical smile of the Regent.
 
For a long moment the silence held as the two big men measured each
other,
then
the Regent gave a booming laugh and
reached out with a big hand to shake the Captain’s.
 
Gan smiled.
 
The ruler was hard to resist.
 
He
had a way with men and it was evident that his officers admired him.
 

“I
suppose, Captain, that you are wondering just where you fit in now that the nut
is cracked?
 
Whether you come out catbird
or get some of the meat?
 
To tell you the
truth, to get the most out of you, I’ve got to offer you the most.
 
Sit down.”
 

The
furnishings of the salon were screwed fast to the floor plates, and the only
place to sit near at hand was the top of an ornate desk.
 
Alain sat, swinging one booted leg from the
edge.
 
The Regent crossed behind it,
swung open a door in the back, handed a tall flagon of blue liquor and two
glasses to the Cap.
 
Gan set the glasses
down, and the Regent sat in the chair behind the desk.
 
Gan filled the glasses raised one to eye
level, grinned as he
toasted:
 
“To Myrmi-Atla and her daughters, the
priestesses of Sacred Alid.
 
May they
live…
long.
”
 

Gan
waited,
his eyes on the suddenly wary eyes of Tor
Branthak.
 
Slowly the ruler picked up his
glass and, as Gan touched his own to his lips, tossed the liquor down his
throat with a quick motion and set the glass down hard as if he had made a decision.
 

“I was
going to tell you anyway, Captain, but since you know, it makes it
simpler.
 
It’s not generally known, you
realize?”
 

Gan’s
voice was hard and even, without a shade of emotion.
 
“On the contrary, it’s well known.”
 

“My
officers do
not
know!
 
As far I
have been able to learn, I’m the only man in all the forces of Konapar who does
know for a certainty what treasure these women hold in secret.
 
For to whom could a man trust a secret so
valuable?”

Gan
Alain’s voice remained even and calm as he echoed:
 
“To
whom
trust—immortality?”

“My spies
stole the record books from the temple some time ago.
 
Those records reach back many centuries,
Captain Alain.
 
In those records are many
deaths, and every death is male!
 
Yet the
whole organization of this religion of theirs is dominated, staffed—by
women!
 
It’s impossible!”

Gan’s
voice echoed the Regent’s once more:
 
“Impossible but true, Your Highness.
 
Quite true.
 
And not the secret you think.
 
I’ve heard it in rumor often.
 
Once I had it by word of mouth from one who
claimed to know.
 
They
don
’
t
die, these women!”

The
Regent’s voice took on a note of awe, of puzzlement, and ended in an angry
exclamation:
 
“They live on and on!
 
But how?
 
Man, how?”

Alain
shrugged,
his face expressionless.
 

The Regent
clenched a big fist, struck it on the table.
 
“We’re
men,
Captain.
 
They
are women who deny this thing to any man, deny it to any but members of their
sacrosanct religious organization.
 
We’ve got to wring it out of them some way.
 
Any
way.
 
I can’t go after it openly—my followers would
think me mad to believe such an impossible story.
 
But you and I, knowing, having them in our
hands, under our absolute power—it will be strange if we can’t get the truth
out of them, or out of at least
one
of them!”

GAN STOOD
up, leaned over the desk to bring his face on a level with Tor Branthak’s.
 
“Give me a free hand, Tor Branthak!
 
Back my play with your authority.
 
Put my men in charge of the main temple and
the priestesses.
 
When I get the secret,
then we open it up, make it known to all, and your conquest will be justified
in all men’s eyes and you will become a savior, a champion who fights for all
men against an ugly, secretive monopoly—of life itself!
 
We’ll have proof…”

“
If
we tell them, Captain.
 
It’s a problem unique to my
experience.
 
A lot depends on the nature
of the secret.
 
Is it a drug, a
medicine, a ray, or is it some damned impossible abracadabra of their
religion, something we couldn’t give away if we wanted to?
 
For that matter, why tell anyone if we do
find it?”

“We’ll
find it!
 
What do you think I threw in
with you for?
 
What you do with it after
we find it is entirely up to you, Tor Branthak.
 
I’ll know too, and I’ll not deny such a thing to my friends.
 
I’ve small respect for Myrmi-Atla if she
teaches her worshippers to keep such a secret from all mankind.
 
Or for her priestesses!
 
They’ll find my hand heavy enough, never
fear.”
 

Gan Alain
straightened, his eyes still holding the dark, hot eyes of Tor Branthak.
 
“Just one more thing, Your
Highness.
 
I’ve a reputation for
square dealing.
 
I’ve also a reputation
for getting even.
 
This thing is quite a
prize, and a terrible temptation.
 
I’ll
go along with you as long as I get aboveboard treatment.
 
But
don
’
t
, Tor Branthak, deal
off the bottom of the deck.
 
Don’t even
consider it!”

“You
threaten me, Captain?”

For an
instant there flashed between the two men a kind of still, terrible lightning
;
a leashed and fearful power of strange and threatening
nature.
 
That lightning came from the
glance of Gan Alain’s eyes upon Tor Branthak’s, a piercing into him of personal
power, so that for an instant the Regent’s fingers shook on the stem of his
glass.
 
As Gan turned away, strode for
the door, Tor Branthak poured the glass full again, sipped it slowly, his eyes
brooding upon the door through which Gan’s broad back disappeared.
 
At last the ruler set his drink down with a
hand that was steady again, and his full, sensuous lips twisted in a smile of
pure delight—delight tinged with sinister exultation.
 
It was the kind of smile a breaker of horses
gives who has bought a seemingly average mount of good appearance, only to
find, when astride it, a creature filled with wild, unbounded vitality—a horse
hard to break, but infinitely valuable once broken.
 
Tor Branthak spoke aloud to the empty
room—and his words were a cold, heavy music ringing in the silence:
 

“Now that
was a mistake, my captain, to show me
that
in you!”

THE
ANCIENT Temple of Myrmi-Atla was a vast pile, very old and many times rebuilt
and enlarged.
 
There were chambers within
chambers, passages in the walls unknown even to the present occupants, and
secret chambers known only to the inner circle.
 

Within one
of these secret chambers stood now at attention a hundred young, strong
women—warrior women bearing weapon harnesses as if the leather grew upon
them.
 
Their eyes were fixed upon a
flaming-haired beauty
who
stood before their ranks
with hands outstretched in benediction.
 

“You go,
war maidens, not in fear or in flight, but only to make ready the way for your
return.
 
Our Mother needs time to meet
this new threat to the Matriarchy; but the rule of women will not perish from
Phira.
 
In every other world known to
mankind, the male is dominant, save on Mixar.
 
But it is
here,
and here alone, where woman
fills her proper place in life.
 
Here
alone is woman not a downtrodden chattel, not a plaything, not a decoration or
a mere bearer of children; but the end and aim of all of the race’s
existence.
 
You go to Alavaon, not to
hide, but to study our conqueror from far-off, and to learn his weaknesses; and
when he has forgotten the warrior-women of Myrmi-Atla, we will strike.
 
When all thoughts of peril from our ancient
power has vanished from his mind—we will strike, and once again the All-Mother
will rule in the same old way.
 
Go, my
sisters; go with love and without shame.
 
Shame will come only when you forget our purpose and become again but
fireside kittens purring at the feet of the dominant male.”
 

Her words
rang with a sincere and ardent determination.
 
On the faces of all the handsome war-maidens the same purpose lived and
shone from their eyes, glanced from the hardened muscles of their rosy jaws,
breathed with each lift of lovely, proudly swelling young breasts—made for love
yet hardened by teaching and encompassing steel to the taste for war and
struggle.
 
Red as new-shed blood were
their uniforms, slim, graceful legs clad in sleek, shining plasticord, weapon
belt, with dagger and needle-gun holster hugging each graceful hip, torso and
fair breasts covered with the brilliance of ray-proof flex-steel, shoulders
bearing proudly the folded glide-wings of the air-soldier, back wearing the
small triple cylinders of the standard atomic jet drive for all glidewings,
strong and graceful arms ringed about with the deadly lightning rings, that
Terran-forbidden device of prisoned electrons released only by the ray of the
needle gun on their hips.
 

They were
as well equipped, as well trained in appearance, as deadly a group of fighting
humans as could be found in the entire galaxy.
 
But for them to fight now, with the heavy weaponed ships of Tor
Branthak and his horde of Konaparians commanding the plateau overlooking the
city with
their own
fleet almost destroyed—was out of
the question.
 
So they saluted, filed
into the passage and down to the hidden tunnel, which would conduct them from
the city.
 
These were the temple guard,
and from
all the
city that day similar groups of
warrior women had been stealing away by secret ways to a rendezvous in hidden
Avalaon.
 

Avalaon
had served them in historic times more than once as a reservoir of hidden
strength in similar crises.
 
For the
rule of women in Phira had been challenged by the war fleets of a dozen powers
in times past, powers and empires now passed away and forgotten.
 
But the rule of Myrmi-Atla and her warrior
maids, of her teacher-priestesses, had survived.
 

After
their going, the temple lay empty and waiting.
 
There were present only the young acolytes, a few of the superior
priestesses, and Celys, the present high priestess, to await the advent of the
conqueror and to render him homage.

THE
ACOLYTES of Myrmi-Atla were gathered in the great main chamber of worship,
before a heroic stone figure of the All-Mother, where Celys led them in singing
hymns.
 
They were awaiting their fate,
and the furtive glances the young girls threw at the wide doorways for the
first glimpse of the inrush of the male conquerors were of two kinds.
 
For their contacts with men of any kind had
been nonexistent, and though they had been taught to fear all men of teachings
other than Myrmi-Atla’s, still nature
herself
made
their young hearts beat not only with fear but also with anticipation.
 
In the case of Celys, however, the occasional
glance she allowed herself would have betrayed her very real emotions to no
one.
 

The
expected rape of the temple seemed to have been delayed.
 
The hymns went on and on, and when at last
they heard the booted feet ringing upon the sacred paves of the dedicated
halls, and raised their voices in even more fervent appeals to the All-Mother,
the tramping feet came to a stamping halt some distance from the main
doorway.
 

A single
pair of feet moved close now, after a ringing command, and paused quite
reverently at the very center of the arched opening.
 
Just as all men of Phira who are devout must
remain without any
chamber which
contains an image of
the All-Mother enshrined, the booted conqueror remained.
 

Celys, her
face puzzled at this courteous behavior from the enemy, waved a hand to Eloi,
who took her place at the altar.
 
Then
Celys moved on silent, graceful feet to meet her fate.
 

There was
a lone man waiting at the door.
 
He was
big, scarred, hard,
muscular
.
 
He was handsome enough, she noted, his mane
of hair like curled golden wires in the lamp light.
 
His face was lined with creases of laughter
about the mouth, deep crinkles about the corners of the eyes, fierce lines of
anger and effort now relaxed.
 
The
observing eye of Celys caught them all.
 
His wide cheeks and heavy jaw were bronzed deeply, and his costume, she
thought, was far too swashbuckling an assembly of colors and metals to be
seemly for any but a blood-dyed pirate.
 
On each thigh swung a hand weapon of a design Celys did not recognize.
 
Had she known what those weapons had done and
could do, it is possible she would have dropped in a faint before him.
 

Celys put
him down as a man impatient of all restraint, a ruthless, domineering rogue
who used his looks and laughter only to disarm unsuspecting womankind.
 
She was sure the straight-seeming honesty of
his eyes was only a guise to outwit other rogues less clever than he.
 

Celys
stood just inside the white line that marked the border where no male foot
might treat without eternal damnation from the All-Mother, eyeing this monster
out of space with
all the
chill she could muster
against his smiling nonchalance.
 
Gan
waited, and she waited, each for the other to speak first.
 
Celys lost the struggle.
 

She shook
her head impatiently, stamped her slim, sandaled foot.
 
“What do you want?
 
Who are you?
 
Why are you here?”

Gan did
not answer at once, but stood eyeing her and allowing an expression of
astonishment to spread slowly across his features.
 
At last he said, with exaggerated
respect:
 
“I had
expected a much older woman, Mother Celys!
 
How old are you, anyway?
 
Not a day over twenty-five, by appearance.”
 

A FLUSH of
embarrassment and anger swept upward from Celys’ white neck, and her tongue
seemed to stumble as she snapped:
 
“My
age is my business.
 
It is also my
business to know what you are doing in the temple at this hour of the
evening?
 
No male
visitors are allowed except between the hours of three and four in the
afternoon.”
 

The smile
left Gan Alain’s face.
 
His voice became
hard and smooth as glass.
 
“My lady, you
know very well why I am here.
 
This city
has fallen into the hands of the Regent of Konapar.
 
To ensure the safety of your priestesses and
the rest of your hennery, he has sent me, whom he considers honorable, to
protect you from the looting and rapine of conquest.
 
If you expect me to carry out this assignment
efficiently, you had better come down off your horse and cooperate.
 
I have already posted my men at the entrances
to this warren of misguided female bigots.
 
It would be better if you didn’t mistake where the power rests from now
on.”
 

Celys’
eyes searched the intruder’s strong and bronzed face for an instant,
then
she bowed her head for a long minute in silent prayer,
her lips moving as she asked the All-Mother for guidance.
 
But Gan moved his feet impatiently.
 

“It would
be best if you showed me the place completely.
 
It could well be that I have overlooked the entries and exits which most
need guards.
 
No one is to leave without
my personal permission, Mother.
 
Understand?”

As Celys
raised her head from prayer, she moved silently out before him, expecting to
precede him.
 
But he swung into step
beside her, and she started at the sound of a score of feet swinging into step
behind them.
 
She gave him a glance of
pure irritation, but his handsome face remained inscrutable; mockingly so, she
decided.
 
She turned her eyes from him
with difficulty.
 
There was something
indescribably fascinating in the man’s presence, a power and dignity she could
not recall having remarked in any other man.
 
Mentally she gave herself a kick at the incongruity of finding power and
dignity in the gaudy garb of a pirate.
 

Celys was
not familiar with the rich worlds of space traffic, the brawling, spawning
ports of the spaceways.
 
She could not
know that Gan’s worn corselet of dull gold leather, gemmed with synthetic
rubies, his close-fitting breeches of black plasticord with gold piping, the
black weapon belt and silver-handled explosive pellet guns made up a costume
that in many places would have been considered plain to the point of
shabbiness.
 

But in one
way Celys was right.
 
No clothing could
conceal the rich wealth of vitality, the vaulting spirit, the leashed physical
strength of the man.
 
To Celys’ eyes, the
swell and ripple of muscles upon his bare arms, where the light glinted from
little golden hairs everywhere, was positively vulgar.
 
This barbarian, she muttered angrily to
herself, had now all power over the temple, it seemed!
 

“Did you
say something, Mother?” asked Alain, hiding a smile at her reaction to the way
he used the word “mother”.
 

Celys
stilled her angry thoughts with a practiced facility and flashed him the first
smile he had seen upon her face.
 
“Why do
you keep calling me ‘mother’?
 
Certainly
you have lived longer than I.”
 

“On my
home planet,” answered Gan easily, “we call all women of religious orders
‘mother’.
 
Does the word irk you?”

“Oh, no.”
 
And Celys gave her head a toss of
impatience.
 
“Not at
all, Father.”
 

Gan gave
his chin a thoughtful massage with his palm.
 
If she was intending to hide what Tor Branthak wanted, she had made a
good start.
 
It surely
seemed
that
she considered herself younger than he.
 
But then again, the truth might be even more irritating, if she were
indeed a creature who had lived several lifetimes in some strange renewal of
youth.
 
This was going to take some sharp
work, he foresaw.
 

THE TEMPLE
was vast, and after two hours of steady pacing up and down stairs and halls, of
peering into chambers filled with accumulations of centuries of female living,
Gan was ready to call a halt.
 

“Before
heaven, dear lady,” he swore, “let us collect your charges into one corner of
this compost heap and post our guards so that we may get some sleep.
 
I’ve been through a hard day, if you have
not.”