Абрахам Меррит - The Ship of Ishtar

The irised lightnings caressed the silver wonder of her body, hardly hidden in the nets of her red gold hair unbound and fallen free.

The priest leaped from the window. Kenton, mad with jealousy that another should behold that white beauty, darted through the curtains to strike him down. Halfway he stopped short, understanding, even pity for the priest of Bel holding him back.

For the priest's soul stood forth naked before his inner sight—and that soul was even as his own would have been he knew, had he been priest and the priest been Kenton.

"No!" cried Bel's priest, and tore the golden helm of his god from his head, hurled sword away, ripped off buckler and cloak—

"No! Not one kiss for Bel! Not one heart beat for Bel!"

"What—shall I pander for Bel? No! It is the man you shall kiss—I! It is a man's heart that shall beat against yours—mine! I—I! No god shall have you."

He caught her in his arms, set burning lips to hers.

Kenton was upon him.

He thrust an arm under the priest's chin; bent back the head until the neck cracked. The priest's eyes glared up into his; his hands left Sharane and battered up at Kenton's face; he twisted to break the latter's grip. Then his body became limp; awe and terror visibly swept away his blind rage. For now the priest's consciousness had taken in Kenton's face—saw it as his own!

His own face was looking down upon him and promising him—death!

The god he had defied, betrayed—had struck! Kenton read his thoughts as accurately as though they had been spoken. He shifted grip, half lifted, half swung the priest high above the floor and hurled him against a wall. He struck; crashed down; lay there twitching.

Sharane crouched—veils caught up, held fast to her by rigid hands—on the edge of the ivoried couch. She stared at him, piteously; her wide eyes clung to his, bewildered; deep within her he sensed grapple of awakening will against the webs of dream.

One great throb of love and pity for her pulsed through him; in it no passion; to him at that moment she was no more than child, bewildered, forsaken, piteous.

"Sharane!" he whispered, and took her in his arms. "Sharane—beloved! Beloved—awaken!"

He kissed her on the cold lips, the frightened eyes.

"Kenton!" she murmured. "Kenton!"—and then so low he could barely hear—"Ah yes—I remember—you were lord of me—ages—ages—ago!"

"Wake, Sharane!" cried Kenton, and again his lips met and clung to hers. And now her lips warmed and clung to his!

"Kenton!" she whispered. "Dear lord—of me!"

She drew back, thrust into his arms little fingers that clutched like ten slow closing fingers of steel; in her eyes he saw the dream breaking as break the last storm clouds before the sun; in her eyes the dream lightened and darkened; lightened—became but cloudy, racing wisps.

"Beloved!" cried Sharane, and all awake, freed from all dream, threw arms around his neck, pressed lips all alive to his: "Beloved one! Kenton!"

"Sharane! Sharane!" he whispered, the veils of her hair covering him as she drew his face to her cheeks, her throat, her breast.

"Oh, where have you been, Kenton?" she sobbed. "What have they done to me? And where is the ship—and where have they taken me? Yet—what does it matter since you are with me!"

"Sharane! Sharane! Beloved!" was all he could say, over and over again, his mouth on hers.

Hands gripped his throat, strong hands, shutting off his breath. Choking, he glared into the mad eyes of the Priest of Bel. Broken, Kenton had thought him—and broken he had not been!

He threw right leg behind the priest's; hurled himself back against the priest with all his strength. The priest fell, dragging Kenton with him. His hands relaxed just enough to let Kenton thrust one of his own between the strangling fingers and his throat. Like a snake the priest slid from under him, threw him aside, sprang to his feet. Quick as he, Kenton leaped up. Before he could draw sword the Priest of Bel was upon him again, one arm around him prisoning his right arm, the other with the elbow fending off Kenton's left arm and tearing at his throat.

Far below, through the drumming of the blood in his ears, Kenton heard the faint throb of another drum, awakening, summoning, menacing—as though it had been a beat of the ziggurat's own heart, alarmed and angry!

And far below Gigi, swinging with long apelike arms from the grapnel he had cast over the outer stairway's edge, hears it, too; swarms with frantic speed up the rope, and with the same tremendous speed follow him first Zubran and close behind him the Viking.

"Alarm!" mutters Sigurd, and draws them under the protection of the skirting wall that they may hear him. "Pray Thor that the sentinels have not heard! Swift now!"

Hugging the wall, the three climb up and around the silver terrace of Sin, the Moon God. The lightnings have almost ceased, but the rain sweeps down in stinging sheets and the winds roar. The stairway is a rushing torrent half knee deep. Blackness of the great storms shrouds them.

Breasting wind and rain, stemming the torrent, they climb—the three.

About Bel's high bower reeled Kenton and the priest, locked tight in each other's arms, each struggling to break the other's hold. Around them circled Sharane, the priest's stolen sword in hand, panting, seeking opening to strike; finding none, so close were the two locked, so swiftly did back of priest, back of lover swirl before her.

"Shalamu! Shalamu!" the dancer of Bel stood at the golden curtains—whipped up through the terrors of the secret shrines by love, remorse, despair! white–faced, trembling, she clung to those curtains.

"Shalamu!" shrilled the dancer. "They come for you! The Priest of Nergal leads."

The priest's back was toward her, Kenton facing her. The priest's head was bent forward, straining to sink teeth in his neck, tear out the arteries; deaf; blind to all but the lust to kill, his ears were closed to Narada.

And Narada, seeing Kenton's face in the fitful light of the brazier, thought it that of the man she loved.

Before Sharane could move she had sped across the room.

She drove her dagger to the hilt in the back of the Priest of Bel!

Huddled for shelter in an alcove cut for them in the ziggurat's wall, the sentinels of the silver zone feel arms thrust out of the storm. Two fall with necks snapped by Gigi's talons, two fall under swift thrusts of Sigurd's sword, two drop beneath the scimitar of the Persian, in that niche now lie only six dead men.

"Swift! Swift!" Sigurd leads the way past the silver zone. They round the orange zone of Shamash the Sun God.

Three deaths reach out of the void, and the sentinels of the orange zone lie dead behind the hurrying feet of the three.

They sense a deeper darkness at their left—the black walls of the zone of Nergal, God of the Dead—

"Swift! Swift!"

The Priest of Bel slid from Kenton's opening arms; he dropped to his knees; he fell backward, dying eyes staring into those of the dancer.

"Narada!" he gasped, through bloody froth, "Narada—you—" The froth turned to a red stream.

The Priest of Bel was dead.

One look the dancer gave him, gave Kenton, and knew—

"Shalamu!" she wailed—and wailing flew at Kenton, dagger poised to strike. Before he could draw sword, before he could raise hands to beat her off, even before he could fall back, she was upon him. Down swept the blade, straight for his heart. He felt the bite of its point—

The point swerved, ripped down through the skin over his ribs. In that same instant Sharane had sprung, had caught the dancer's hand, had wrested the dagger from it and driven it deep into Narada's breast.

Like a young tree at the ax's last blow the dancer stood for a heartbeat, shuddering, then down she dropped, prone upon the priest. She moaned and with the last flare of life flung arms around his head and laid lips to his.