Абрахам Меррит - The Ship of Ishtar

And there was a mist before his eyes.

Through that mist the sleeping forms of the oarsmen wavered—were like phantoms. And now he could no longer see the knife.

He rubbed his eyes, looked down on Sigurd. He was a wraith!

He looked at the sides of the ship. They melted away even as he sought them. He had a glimpse of sparkling turquoise sea. And then—it became vaporous. Was not!

Cease to be!

And now Kenton floated for an instant in thick mist shot through with silvery light. The light snapped out. He hurtled through a black void filled with tumult of vast winds.

The blackness snapped out! Through his closed lids he saw light. And he was no longer falling. He stood, rocking, upon his feet. He opened his eyes―Once more he was within his own room! Outside hummed the traffic of the Avenue, punctuated by blasts of auto horns.

Kenton rushed over to the jeweled ship. Except for the slaves, on it was but one little figure—one toy. A manikin who stood half way down the pit steps, mouth open, whip at feet, stark astonishment in every rigid line.

Zachel, the overseer!

He looked down into the galley pit. The slaves lay asleep, oars at rest―

And suddenly he caught sight of himself in the long mirror! Stood, wondering, before it!

For what he saw was never the Kenton who had been borne out of that room upon the breast of the inrushing mystic sea. His mouth had hardened, eyes grown fearless, falcon bright. Over all his broadened chest the muscles ran not bulging, bound—but graceful, flexible, and steel hard. He flexed his arms, and the muscles ran rippling along them. He turned, scanned his back in the mirror.

Scars covered it, healed teeth marks of the lash. The lash of Zachel—Zachel—the toy?

No toy had made those scars!

No oars of toy had brought into being those muscles!

And suddenly all Kenton's mind awoke. Awoke and was filled with shame, with burning longing, despair.

What would Sigurd think of him when he awakened and found him gone—Sigurd with whom he had sworn blood brothership? What would Gigi think—Gigi, who had made vow for vow with him; and trusting him, had broken his chains?

A frenzy shook him. He must get back! Get back before Sigurd or Gigi knew that he was no longer on the ship.

How long had he been away? As though in answer a clock began chiming. He counted. Eight strokes!

Two hours of his own time had passed while he had been on the ship. Two hours only? And in those two hours all these things had happened? His body changed to—this?

But in those two minutes he had been back in his room what had happened on the ship?

He must get back! He must…

He thought of the fight before him. Could he take his automatics with him when he went back—if he could go back? With them he could match any sorceries of the black priest. But they were in another room, in another part of his house. Again he looked at himself in the glass. If his servants saw him—thus! They would not know him. How could he explain? Who would believe him?

And they might tear him away—away from this room where the ship lay. This room that held his only doorway back into Sharane's world!

He dared not risk going from that room.

Kenton threw himself upon the floor; grasped the golden chains that hung from the ship's bow—so thin they were, so small on the ship of jeweled toys!

He threw his will upon the ship! Summoning it! Commanding it!

The golden chains stirred within his grasp. They swelled. He felt a tearing wrench. Thicker grew the chains. They were lifting him. Again the dreadful wrenching, tearing at every muscle, nerve and bone.

His feet swung free.

The vast winds howled around him—for a heartbeat only. They were gone. In their place was the rushing of wind driven waves. He felt the kisses of their spray.

Beneath him was a racing azure sea. High above him curved the prow of the Ship of Ishtar. But not the ship of jeweled toys. No! The ensorcelled ship of which the toy ship was the symbol; the real ship on which blows were actual and death lurked—death that even now might be watching him, poised to strike!

The chain he clutched passed up the side of the bow and into the hawser port painted like a great eye between the bow–ward wall of the cabin and the curved prow. Behind him the great oars rose and fell. He could not be seen from them; the oarsmen's backs were toward him and the oar ports were covered with strong leather, through which the shanks slipped; shields to protect the rowers from waves dashing past those ports. Nor, under the hang of the hull as he was, could he be seen from the black deck.

Slowly, silently, hand over hand, pressing his body as close to the hull as he could, he began to creep up the chain. Up to Sharane's cabin. Up to that little window that opened into her cabin from the closed bit of deck beneath the great scimitar.

Slowly, more slowly, he crept; pausing every few links to listen; he reached at last the hawser port; he threw a leg over the bulwark, and dropped upon the little deck. He rolled beneath the window; flattened himself against the cabin wall; hidden now from every eye upon the ship; hidden even from Sharane, should she peer through that window.

Crouched there—waiting.

KENTON raised his head, cautiously. The chains passed through a hawser port, wound around a crude windlass and were fastened to a thin, double hook that was more like a grappling iron than anchor. Evidently, although control of steering gear, mast and rowers' pit was in the hands of the black priest, the women of Sharane looked after anchorage. He noted, with some anxiety, a door leading out of the cabin's farther side—the portion that housed her warrior maids. But it was not likely, he thought, that any would come out as long as the ship was under sail and oar. At any rate he would have to take that risk.

Through the opened window above him he could hear the hum of voices. Then that of Sharane came to him scornful.

"He broke his chains, even as he had promised—and then fled!"

"But mistress," it was Satalu. "Where could he go? He did not come here. How do we know that Klaneth did not take him?"

"No mistaking Klaneth's wrath," answered Sharane. "No mistaking the scourging he gave Zachel. Both were real, Satalu."

So the black priest had scourged Zachel had he, well, that, at any rate, was good news.

"Nay, Satalu," said Sharane, "why argue? He had grown strong. He broke his chains. He fled. And so proved himself the coward I called him—and never believed he was—till now!"

There was silence in the cabin. Then Sharane spoke again.

"I am weary, Luarda—watch outside the door. You others to your cabin to sleep—or what you will. Satalu, brush my hair a little and then leave me."

Another silence; a longer one. Then Satalu's voice:

"Mistress, you are half asleep. I go."

Kenton waited—but not long. The sill of the window was about as high above the anchor deck as his chin. He raised himself gently; peered within. His gaze rested first on the shrine of the luminous gems, the pearls and pale moonstones, the milky curdled crystals. He had the feeling that it was empty, tenantless. There were no flames in the seven little crystal basins.

He looked down. The head of the wide divan of ivory with its golden arabesques was almost beneath him. Upon it lay Sharane, face down upon its cushions, clothed only in one thin silken veil and the floods of her red gold hair, and weeping; weeping like any woman with bruised heart.

Weeping for—him?

A gleam of sapphire, a glint of steel caught his eyes. It was his sword—the sword of Nabu. The sword he had vowed he would not take from her hands—would take, unaided, with his own. It hung upon a low rack on the wall just above her head; so close that she need but reach up a hand to grasp it.