Абрахам Меррит - The Ship of Ishtar

Six fell out of the ranks, ranged themselves beside Kenton.

The cup maidens picked up ewers and bowls. They tripped through the curtains.

One of the six bowmen pointed to the lower floor. Kenton walked down the steps.

Black priest on one side of him, white–faced captain on the other, three archers marching before them, three after them, he passed out of the judgment chamber of the king.

THEY LED Kenton to a narrow room in whose high walls were slitted windows. Its heavy door was solid bronze. Around its sides ran stone benches. In its center was another bench. The bowmen sat him on it, tied his ankles with leathern thongs, threw cloaks on its top and pressed him down upon them. They seated themselves two by two on three sides of the room, eyes fixed on black priest and captain, now ready.

The captain tapped the black priest on the shoulder.

"My reward?" he asked. "When do I get it?" "When the slave is in my hands and not before," answered Klaneth, savagely, "If you had been—wiser, you would have had it by now."

"Much good it would be doing me, with an arrow through my heart or—" he shuddered—"wailing even now at the feet of the king's left hand death!"

The black priest looked at Kenton evilly; bent over him. "Put no hope in the king's favor," he muttered. "It was his drunkenness that was speaking. When he awakens he will have forgotten. He will give you to me without question. No hope there!"

"No?" sneered Kenton, meeting the malignant eyes steadily. "Yet twice have I beaten you—you black swine."

"But not a third time," spat Klaneth. "And when the king awakens I will have not only you but that temple drab you love! Ho!" rumbled the black priest as Kenton winced, "that touches you, does it? Yes, I will have you both. And together you shall die—slowly, ah, so slowly, watching each other's agonies. Side by side—side by side until slowly, slowly, my torturers have destroyed the last of your bodies. Nay, the last of your souls! Never before has man or woman died as you two shall!"

"You cannot harm Sharane," answered Kenton. "Carrion eater whose filthy mouth drips lies! She is Bel's priestess and safe from you."

"Ho! You know that do you?" grunted Klaneth; then bent, whispering close to Kenton's ear so softly that no one but him could hear. "Listen—here then is a sweet thought to carry you while I am away. Only while the priestess is faithful to the god is she beyond my reach. Now listen—listen—before the king awakes your Sharane shall have taken another lover! Yea! Your love shall lie in the arms of an earthly lover! And he will not be—you!"

Kenton writhed, striving to break his bonds. "Sweet Sharane!" whispered Klaneth leering. "Holy Vase of Joy! And mine now to break as I will—while the King sleeps!"

He stepped back to the soldier who had taken Kenton. "Come," he said.

"Not I," answered the soldier, hastily. "By the gods, I prefer this company. Also if I lose sight of this man—I might forever lose sight of that reward you owe me for him."

"Give me his sword," ordered Klaneth, reaching toward the blade of Nabu which the officer had retained.

"The sword goes with the man," answered the captain, setting it behind him; he looked at the archers.

"That is true," the bowmen nodded to each other. "Priest, you cannot have the sword."

Klaneth snarled; his hands flew out. Six bows bent, six arrows pointed at his heart. Without word, the black priest strode out of the cell. An archer arose, dropped into place a bar, sealing the door. A silence fell. The officer brooded; now and then he shivered as though cold, and Kenton knew he was thinking of that Death who with smiling, tender eyes had pressed teeth of torture in his breast. The six bowmen watched him unwinkingly.

And at last Kenton closed his own eyes—fighting to keep back the terror of Klaneth's last threat against his beloved; fighting against despair.

What plot had the black priest set going against her, what trap had he laid, to make him so sure that so soon he would have her in his hands—to break! And where were Gigi and Sigurd and Zubran? Did they know how he had been taken? A great loneliness swept over him.

How long his eyes were closed, or whether he had slept—he never could tell. But he heard as though from infinite distances away a still, passionless voice.

"Arise!" it bade him.

He opened his lids; lifted his head. A priest stood beside him, a priest whose long blue robes covered him from head to foot. Nothing could he see of the priest's face.

He knew that his arms and ankles were free. He sat up. Ropes and thongs lay on the floor. On the stone benches the bowmen leaned one against the other asleep. The officer was asleep.

The priest pointed to his sword, the sword of Nabu lying across the sleeping soldier's knees. Kenton took it. The priest pointed to the bar that held the door. Kenton lifted it and swung the door open. The blue priest glided through the doorway, Kenton close behind.

The blue priest drifted along the corridor for a hundred paces or so and then pressed against what, to Kenton's sight, was a blank wall. A panel opened. Now they stood in a long corridor, dimly lighted. Along it they went in a great curve. It came to Kenton that this hidden passage followed the huge arc of the temple, that it ran behind the temple's outer wall.

Now a massive bronze door closed the way. The blue priest seemed only to touch it. Yet it swung open; it closed behind them.

Kenton stood in a crypt some ten feet square. At one end was the massive door through which he had come; at the other was a similar one. At his left was a ten–foot slab of smooth, pallid stone.

The blue priest spoke—if indeed it were he speaking, since the passionless, still voice Kenton heard seemed, like that which had bidden him arise, to come from infinite distance.

"The mind of the woman you love—sleeps!" it said. "She is a woman walking in dream—moving among dreams that another mind has made for her. Evil creeps upon her. It is not well to let that evil conquer—Yet the issue rests on you—on your wisdom, your strength, your courage. When your wisdom tells you it is the time—open that farther door. Your way lies through it. And remember—her mind sleeps. You must awaken it—before the evil leaps upon her."

Something tinkled on the floor. At Kenton's feet lay a little wedge–shaped key. He stooped to pick it up. As he raised his head he saw the blue priest beside the far door.

The blue priest seemed but a wisp of wind–drawn smoke that, even as he looked, faded through the bronze and vanished!

Kenton heard the murmur of many voices, muffled, vague. He slipped from door to door, listening. The voices were not within the passage. They seemed to seep through the slab of pallid smooth stone. He placed an ear against it. The sounds came to him more distinctly, but still he could distinguish no words. The stone must be exceedingly thin here, he thought, that he could hear at all. He saw at his right a little shining lever. He drew it down.

A three–foot–wide, misty disc of light began to glow within the stone. It seemed to eat through the stone; it flashed out dazzlingly. Where the disc had been was a circular opening, a window. Silhouetted against it were the heads of a woman and two men. Their voices came now as clearly to his ears as though they stood beside him; over them came the wavelike murmur of a multitude. He drew back, fearing to be seen. The little lever snapped back into place. The window faded; with its fading the voices muted. He stared again at the smooth, pale wall.

Slowly he drew down the lever; once more he watched the apparent burning out of the solid stone; saw the three heads reappear. He had his free hand over the visible wall to the edge of the circle; higher he lifted it, into the disc itself. And ever he touched cold stone. Even that which was to his eyes an opening was to the questing fingers—stone!