Брайан Ламли - Khai of Khem

Several of Rush’s mightiest men had struggled their way up the ramp to the steps and the glassy-eyed Nubians were by no means having it their own way. One by one they were falling, and Kindu himself had been responsible for cutting down three of them. He and Nundi had known momentary qualms about standing against fellow Nubians, but face-to-face with them, they had seen that Khasathut’s guardsmen were utterly beyond redemption. They were no longer Nubians—indeed, they were something less than human. Nundi was out of the fight now, having fallen back with a slashed sinew in his sword arm, but Kindu battled on. That was the way things stood when Manek Thotak arrived, bloodied and battle-stained, to fling himself into this final fight.

He was opposed by a huge black, gutted him, then broke through the cordon and leapt for the top of the steps. The sight he saw as his eyes came up level with the pyramid’s roof stopped him dead in his tracks. His mouth fell open as his eyes went from the scene on the summit to the colossal, silently spinning shape which even now reared its bulk over Asorbes until its shadow eclipsed the massive monument itself.

And as that shadow fell over Khasathut, so the Pharaoh turned his face to the sky and saw the golden pyramid for the first time. He, too, was stunned— but only for a moment. Then—

It was as if the sight of this fantastic aerial visitant had tapped some unknown reserve of strength within him. He no longer had need of the bellow-like amplifiers with which his bizarre, larger-than-life ceremonial effigies were equipped; and weak as he was from loss of blood, still he seemed to swell larger as the spinning of the gigantic craft high above him slowed and finally stopped. Now the thing hung motionless in the sky, its base a mighty square of gold even larger than the base of Khasathut’s pyramid itself, and now too Pharaoh roared out his triumph to a city struck dumb with awe and terror.

“See!” he cried, pointing his one good hand at the incredible vessel poised impossibly in thin air. “In my hour of need, my ancestors have returned to succor me. You who have defiled my temples, my house, my tomb—all of you—” he had moved to stand at the south-east corner of the summit, from where he waved his arm imperiously over the city, “you must pay I”

His voice carried out over a city which, except for a low wind that whistled round the pyramid’s summit and carried Khasathut’s words afar, was suddenly quiet as a tomb. Only that eerie wind and the distant crackle of flames competed with the voice of the triumphant monster as he laughed his maniac glee and beckoned with his one good arm.

“And see,” he roared again, “see what has become of your mightiest general! Did you think he would kill me? Come, Khai, show yourself. Let your warriors see how I have bent you to my will—the fate which they too must share, because they have defied me.”

Khai stepped forward into view—shoulders slumped, arms and hands hanging limp, head low on his chest—Khasathut laughed again as the silence seemed positively to deepen. “Is this the great general?” Pharaoh roared. “Well, then, see how I break him—how you will all be broken.” He pointed to the south and screamed: “Now, Khai—throw yourself down!”

Without protest, Khai took a lurching step closer to the rim of the steeply plunging south face. He stood on the very edge, rocking to and fro, threatening at any moment to fall.

“Jump, Khai, jump!” cried Pharaoh, and the blood-spattered warrior bent his legs until he half-crouched at the edge of eternity.

“Stop!” came the bull voice of Manek Thotak. He had recovered at last from the almost supernatural paralysis which still held the rest of the city in thrall, and he had snatched up Khai’s bow and an arrow from his quiver. Now, drawing back the bowstring to its full, he aimed the shaft across the summit’s small space and sighted it upon the two figures where they stood at the corner of the south-facing rim. Manek was aware of the vast mass hanging in the sky above him, so much so that its very shadow seemed to fall upon him like a physical weight. Without a doubt, Khasathut’s own kind had returned from the stars, and it seemed equally certain that they were watching him even now.

“Jump!” cried Pharaoh again, rage written in his bulging eyes; and once again Khai tensed the muscles of his legs as if to spring from the rim. Manek’s hands quivered as he traversed the bow from Khasathut’s naked, pink and twisted form to the broad back of the young general: Khai—who was once Khai of Khem—who might yet be a king in Kush! Manek’s lips drew back in a snarl. He gritted his strong teeth until beads of sweat stood out upon his forehead. But—

“No!” he cried then in self-denial, and in the next instant realigned the bow and released the arrow ... which flew straight to its target and transfixed Pharaoh’s shoulder, knocking him down dangerously close to the rim.

The shriek which Khasathut immediately vented seemed to break the spell hanging over the city. Brave warriors though they were, the victors could no longer face up to the powers of Beings capable of suspending a pyramid in mid-air. They began to flee the city in droves—rushing madly back down the great ramp in such a stampede that those unfortunate enough to be caught at its edges were sent screaming to their deaths—streaming like myriads of ants through the streets of Asorbes and out through its shattered gates—and as they fled so Manek ran to Khai and dragged him back from the rim, guiding him to the steps.

There Khai’s control returned, and shaking his head as if to clear it of invisible, poisonous fumes, he stared after his fleeing army. Down below him stood the last of Pharaoh’s zombie-like guardsmen, staggering to and fro as they, too, were released from the now broken trance of fascination. They bled from countless wounds and only the spell had kept them on their feet—until now. For even as Khai watched they slumped to the steps which they had defended to the last and the life went out of them.

“Come on, Khai,” Manek shouted in the blond giant’s ear. We have to get away from here!”

Khai followed him shakily down the first few steps and then paused. The last of his warriors were streaming down the ramp and the rout of fleeing humanity through the streets of Asorbes was now at its full. “Come on,” Manek shouted again, taking his arm. “Why do you linger?”

Khai shook himself free of the other’s hand. “You go,” he told Manek. “I … I have to know!” He turned to stare at the summit’s center where Khasathut now kneeled with his hideous face turned up to the golden, sky-floating pyramid.

“To know what?” Manek cried, lifting his voice against a wind that sprang up from nowhere to blow his hair in his face.

“Go!” Khai shouted, almost in anger. “I’ll follow—when I can.”

Manek argued no longer, but went bounding down the steps and followed the others where they fled. Khai, alone now, stepped up again onto the roof of the pyramid and turned his wide blue eyes up to gaze at the vast golden menace which hung cold and alien over Asorbes.

“Strike him down!” screamed Khasathut, pointing at Khai where he stood. “Strike them all down and take me up, quickly, for I am surely dying. Take me up, my ancestors, for I am one of you and have suffered. Why do you wait? Do you not know me?”

Without warning, an area of the golden pyramid’s base glowed brighter yet and Khai staggered and shielded his eyes as a beam of yellow light struck downward and fixed upon the lofty summit, trapping two lives within its perimeter and binding them like flies in honey. Khai would have fled then, if he could, but he could not. Through a haze of golden particles, he saw Khasathut—his mouth working in a sort of slow-motion, his octopus eyes bulging, pleading—but he could hear nothing at all through the screen of potent energies which now surrounded him.