Authors: Robert E. Vardeman
“Yeah, I got one thing to say. You beat me fair and square. No tricks, no fancy stuff. You’re the better man.”
Slayton stared at Nightwind for a long moment. The expression on his face changed from glee to uncertainty. “You admit it? You acknowledge my supremacy? What’s the trick? You’re trying to fool me!”
“Sure I am, Slayton. But you won’t find out until it’s too late. All the sandcats have been drugged. I did it myself.”
“You’re lying. You have no such drugs. And the sandcats are still out there. I can feel them! I’m in contact with them mentally.”
“Ha! Liar! You’re no telepath.” Here it was. Get him boasting about his prowess, and his attention might lapse. An outside chance was better than no chance at all.
“You don’t know? You haven’t guessed the power of the scepter? Ha! And I thought you were an intelligent man, the one with all the answers! This wand gives me the power. I’m able to enter the sandcats’ minds and make them do my bidding. You should have guessed that. Do you think they were smart enough to establish such an effective defense perimeter? I told them — mentally — how to do it.”
“Fat lot of good it did you. We still got in.”
“But why should the sandcats cooperate with me to fight you? I’ll tell you why. I commanded them to do it. The original race that built this city was able to command completely. The scepter has given me the power now. The gems are quasi-living. Lacking a true life of their own, they require a mind to give them full life. In exchange for this life, I’m given total power!”
Nightwind nodded grimly. That explained Slayton’s diminishing mental capacity. The jewels weren’t quite alive, yet not dead. They were sucking his very life force from his body in return for the dubious reign he was enjoying so. The psuedo-life was possibly symbiotic. Perhaps it required an outlet.
But total power? This was too much for a killer like Slayton to handle. He was slowly decaying mentally and didn’t even notice. But how could he? He thought he was receiving the greatest gift in the universe. And he might have been. For a short time, he was virtually omnipotent.
It was Nightwind’s sorry circumstance he had to come across the madman while he was still able to effectively use the wand.
“Don’t kid yourself, Slayton. It’s not total power. You don’t know what’s going to happen when you begin to slip — but I do. You’ll let up for a second. Maybe nothing will happen that time. Or the next. But sooner or later, the sandcats will kill you. They were imprisoned once before by that scepter. They’re not taking it too well this time. They’ll rip you to bloody pieces.”
“NO! They worship me! And how do you know what has happened to the sandcats in the past? Only I know from reading their minds!” Slayton looked down at his victim, slyness in his gaze mixed with a little bit of fear.
“I can read their minds, too, Slayton. You mean you can’t without the scepter? Are they trying to block you out?” Nightwind had to goad the man into a mistake.
The blasterifle was less than two meters away. If Slayton’s attention was pulled away for the briefest instant, Nightwind was positive he could get the rifle. Then this nightmare would be at an end.
Guardian … sleep … making sleep … all … no! … stop Ruler!
“Are you getting that, Slayton? The sandcat wants me to stop you. Did you hear it talking to me, mind to mind?”
“This is some sort of trick!” Slayton took a step forward and looked at the sandcat still locked in a death struggle with Heuser. “You’re…”
Nightwind moved as fast as he could, but the sharp, searing pain in his side slowed him. Slayton managed to reach the blasterifle at the same instant. A brief struggle and Slayton came away with the rifle. He carelessly tossed it aside. “I should have known. Now I will finish you off in a manner befitting one so low and beneath my contempt.”
“Don’t do me any favors, Slayton.” Nightwind realized he was about at the end of his luck. Steorra stirred slightly, but he could count on no more help from the woman. Being knocked out twice coupled with the beating she had received at Slayton’s hands would have killed a lesser person. She would recover.
The question was: would she recover to find both Nightwind and Heuser dead?
“I’m going to kill you in a manner which pleases my imperial fancy.”
Nightwind … sleepy … too sleepy.
Heuser was suddenly holding a limp sandcat. He looked across the room, then clenched his tiny fists. “I don’t know what you did to the Guardian, but you’re going to pay for it. I’ll tear your arms off and beat you to death with them, Slayton!”
“I have no doubt but you could. You are deceptively strong, small one. But would you really do it against my will?”
Heuser was slowly advancing across the throne room when his face went totally blank. All expression was wiped from it like dirt from a window. Nightwind could see all the way into Heuser’s soul in that brief instant. Slayton had put the sandcat to sleep for a reason. He was trying to possess Heuser’s mind as he had the Guardian’s.
Nightwind knew a titanic power struggle was ensuing. Heuser’s face began to contort into a mask of rage. His hands clenched tighter at his sides. Knuckles white, he began shuffling forward, his eyes still unfocused. It was difficult to tell which way the battle was going.
Slayton wasn’t controlling the cyborg as easily as he had any of the sandcats. He was panting, his hands shook with effort and his face was pasty white from exertion. The scepter in his hand glowed with a fierce light unlike that which it originally radiated. As the mental battle raged on, Nightwind fancied he could sense the thoughts moving back and forth across the room faster than the speed of light.
Submit!
No! … Kill you!
Weak one
…
I control … friends useless to you … obey… submit!
Kill you … kill!… must … must not … stop … stop!
Slayton laughed. His voice almost broke from the strain, but he was gaining control. He was slowly assuming power over the cyborg’s mind. His will was being superimposed on that of the small man’s. There was no denying his power augmented by the alien, jeweled scepter.
Nightwind could sense the self-determination of his friend being ripped from him.
Obey!… you are my slave … obey … obey … obey!
No … no … I … what … what want?
Kill Nightwind!
NO!
Yes … kill Nightwind!
“Slayton. Stop it! You’ve made your point.” Nightwind desperately wanted to break the man’s concentration. If he could give Heuser a chance to regain his senses, throw off the yoke of Slayton’s deadly command, there might be a chance yet. The brilliance from the scepter filled the room with an eerie light. This, in part, told of the tremendous mental energies flowing between the men.
The gems no longer seemed milky white. They were now coruscating points of brilliance too intense to view directly. Their colors changed constantly. The entire spectrum was represented briefly as the jewels flared out their pseudo-lives in the attempt to seize control of another’s mind and emotions.
“Quiet!”
Nightwind crumpled under the mental blow accompanying the command. He didn’t think Slayton had any reserves left. He was wrong. The mental pressure seemed to crush him down to the floor. His weakened condition didn’t help; the mental blast almost killed him.
Kill Nightwind!
Kill?… friend!… no … kill!… Nightwind!… no!
YES!… kill … kill … KILL!
Nightwind saw the curtain pull across Heuser’s eyes. They clouded with uncertainty. But the cyborg’s hands reached toward him. And one slow step at a time was bringing the cyborg toward where he lay. Nightwind didn’t doubt Heuser was fighting. The snippets of mental communication he intercepted told him that. But Heuser wasn’t going to be able to withstand the combined mental pressure of Slayton and the scepter. He was going to obey.
Obey and kill his best friend.
“SLAYTON, WE’LL LEAVE you alone. We’ll go off and forget all about this place. It’ll all be yours.”
“You surprise me, Nightwind. I hadn’t expected you to snivel and beg like a slave. A whipped dog. A … a … ” Words escaped the man. His face was bathed in the light from the scepter. Nightwind guessed, from the way the wand’s jewels were pulsing, the control over Heuser was tenuous. If he could only break it for a moment, the pair of them could overcome Slayton. As he watched, Nightwind was certain he saw the vitality drain from Slayton. His physical reserves were about used up; he didn’t understand the scepter was
his
master, and he was the slave.
He felt like a king. That was enough.
“You can’t possibly hope to make him kill me. He’s my friend. We’ve been through hell in the past ten years saving each other’s lives so many times we’ve lost count.”
“Watch!” Slayton cried, triumphant.
Nightwind’s eyes were held by the sight of the cyborg advancing on him. Heuser’s hands shook as if with some exotic form of palsy. He was clenching his teeth, grinding them together, pulling his lips back from his teeth. The sweat beading his forehead told of immense strain.
Nightwind caught a brief telepathic flash:
Sorry!
Then Heuser was on him, hands groping for his throat.
In an ordinary fight, Nightwind knew he would have stood little chance against Heuser. The cyborg was slower, much slower. His reflexes were largely artificial and couldn’t compare with Nightwind’s genetic feline ones. This was an intentional feature programmed into the plasteel limbs to protect both owner and surroundings from an unthinking move. Heuser had to be deliberate; he was too strong not to be.
Nightwind was vastly faster — normally. Now, his injuries slowed him. And there was no question of matching the cyborg’s strength. Slow, deliberate, powerful. He was implacable. He was a Titan. He could lift ten times his own weight and never show strain. Steel bars were like rubber in the hands of the cyborg. Nightwind couldn’t fight Heuser and win.
But Heuser was far from being in top form. He was mentally fighting against Slayton. The sweat on his forehead showed it. The way his hands shook, the hesitant steps, the gritted teeth all pointed to it.
This might be the supine man’s salvation. But Nightwind couldn’t count on it. If Slayton could keep an entire pride of sandcats under mental domination, one mere man should pose little trouble.
Heuser’s fingers touched Nightwind’s windpipe. In a move much slower than normal, but still faster than Heuser could respond to, Nightwind gripped Heuser’s left wrist with both his own hands and twisted to the left. The stranglehold was broken, and Heuser landed face down on the floor.
Nightwind tried holding the cyborg but couldn’t. A tiny trickle of blood ran from Heuser’s nose where he had collided with the floor. He didn’t seem to even notice the thin river of red dripping down onto his desert suit.
“See, Nightwind, see? He obeys me. ME! And he’s going to kill you. Oh, how I’ve waited to see this! Ever since you humiliated me aboard the
Ajax,
I’ve wanted to get even. No one makes a fool out of me and lives to brag about it. Especially not some too-tall, too-scrawny type like you. Now your friend will kill you.”
“And then, Slayton, what?”
“Then Heuser will kill the woman. And for him?” Slayton shrugged. “I shall feed him to the sandcats. That seems appropriate. I’ll wake them up and let them all rip him to shreds and devour his flesh.”
Nightwind was too busy fending off Heuser’s new attack. The cyborg moved as if both feet were embedded in concrete. But that didn’t stop him from eventually backing his prey into a corner. The cyborg was relatively unscathed in spite of his twin fights with the sandcats. His arms and legs were covered with deep cuts, cuts which didn’t bleed. The cybernetic portion of his anatomy had borne the brunt of the sandcats’ attacks.
“How do you like it, Nightwind, knowing your very own friend will soon be killing you?”
Nightwind caught a frenzied thought:
NO! … never!
He knew Heuser was fighting back. It didn’t seem possible, however, that he could continue fleeing from the clutching fingers long enough for the cyborg to break the hypnotic compulsion Slayton held over him. The power of the scepter was too great.
“I don’t like it, Slayton. And Heuser doesn’t, either. I’m picking up his thoughts. He’s fighting back. He’ll … augh!” Nightwind’s words were cut off. Heuser managed to grip the man by the arm and squeezed.
The torturing grip took Nightwind’s voice. Red pain from crushed bones blasted into his brain. And by that pain, gained a few extra seconds of life.
His pain was broadcast with such intensity, even Slayton’s scepter-backed control was blanked out.
NO!
…
Slayton … kill him!
Heuser, freed of the scepter’s mental domination, spun to attack. He got less than a pace. As the pain died in Nightwind’s body, the first surge of agony gone, Slayton managed to regain the telepathic control again. The expense: he lost a little more of his own vitality.
Nightwind saw the battle continuing. Heuser was not amenable to easy control. He wasn’t a sandcat with a long racial history of mental slavery. He was used to thinking, doing, deciding for himself. His power of mind was great. Without the jeweled telepathic amplifier, Slayton wouldn’t have stood a chance.
As it was, Heuser was slowly being brought back under the self-styled king of Rhyl’s power. Nightwind watched the change come over his friend. Slowly, inexorably, the change occurred. The facial muscles went slack, the arms hanging limp at his sides began to tense, the fists to clench. And then Heuser was turning back, once more intent on killing him.
But this time, Nightwind had new hope. Steorra was stirring, coming out of the depths of her unconsciousness.
“Slayton,” he said in a loud voice, never taking his eyes off the advancing cyborg, “Steorra is behind you with the blasterifle. You shouldn’t tempt her to shoot you in the back. She’s weak. She might actually enjoy it.”