Golden Blood (10 page)

Price began a battle to move. Deadly paralysis claimed him. A dull weight rested on his brain; his head swam. Suffocation choked him. Coldness crept up his limbs, prickling deadness.

But he was not going to surrender. He wasn’t going to let himself be hypnotized by a snake. Not even a golden snake, in a mirage of madness.
A matter of wills.
He would
not
be mastered!

His head was turning, involuntarily, to follow the swaying serpent’s orbs. He tensed the muscles of his neck, struggled to keep his head motionless, to turn his eyes downward.

Then his whole body tensed. He had the incredible sensation that the snake realized his resistance, was increasing the hypnotic power that chained him. Price set his jaw, jerked his head down.

All his will went into the effort. And a cord of evil seemed to snap. He was free. Weak, trembling, with a feeling of nausea in the pit of his stomach, but free! He dared himself to look back at the snake’s eyes. And the dread paralysis did not return. He had proved his mastery.

Price turned, reeling uncertainly. He saw a sickening thing.

Standing about him were two-score Beni Anz warriors, afoot, as he was. All were frozen in rigid paralysis, staring up into the mirage. Mute, helpless terror was on their white, sweat-beaded faces. Their eyes were glazed, they breathed slowly, gaspingly. And Malikar was murdering them.

The gold giant had dismounted from the yellow tiger, which stood two-score yards away. Swiftly he was passing from one to another of the motionless, paralyzed men, methodically stabbing each in the breast with a long, two-edged sword.

The men stood in tense paralysis, staring at the fatal mirage, heads turning a little to follow the swaying, hypnotic eyes of the snake. Helpless, naked horror was on their faces; they were unaware of Malikar, so near.

The yellow man worked swiftly, driving his blade with dexterous skill into unguarded breasts, withdrawing it with a jerk as he pushed his victims backward, to sprawl with red blood welling out.

Outraged, half sick with the brutal horror of it, Price shouted something, sprang toward him.

Malikar turned suddenly, his red robe dripping with new blood. A moment he was startled, motionless, with fear unmistakable in his shallow, tawny eyes. Then he leapt to meet Price, brandishing his reeking blade.

Price met the sword-thrust with the golden buckler, and swung the ax. The yellow man sprang back; but the ax-blade grazed his shoulder, the bloody sword clattered from his ringers.

Price ran forward over the rocky ground, to follow up his advantage. Luck was against him. A loose stone turned under his foot; he stumbled, went heavily to his knees.

As he staggered back to his feet, Malikar leapt away, picked up a heavy block of lava, flung it at him. Price tried in vain to dodge. He felt the impact of the missile against his head; crimson flame seemed to burst from it, flaring through all his brain.

When Price groaned and sat up it was just past sunset. The cool wind that had roused him was blowing down from the black mass of the mountain across the bleak lava flows northward. In the fading, rosy light the gold-and-white palace above the frowning walls was a splendorous coronal. And the mirage was gone.

Price woke where Malikar had felled him. The
wadi’s
stony floor was red with piles of thawed flesh and shattered bone. Near him were the score of men Malikar had stabbed as they were helpless in that dread fascination of the snake, dark
abbas
and white
kafiyehs
scarlet-stained.

He was alone with the dead. Malikar was gone, with the tiger.
And the Beni Anz, and Fouad’s men, and Jacob Garth’s.
But the little tank still stood there, where the ray of cold had stopped it, in the middle of the
wadi.

With a dull and heavy sense of despair, Price realized that once again Malikar had defeated him. Bitterly he recalled the stone that had turned under his foot. The Durand luck had failed again.

His allies must have retreated in mad haste; perhaps they had broken the spell of the mirage, even as he had done, and fled. The abandonment of the tank, of himself and the possessions of the men about him, was proof enough of flight.

Not again, after this reverse, would the Beni Anz follow him, he knew. “Iru” would be discredited. And Aysa—lovely Aysa of the many moods, serious and smiling, demure and gay, strange, daring fugitive of the sand-waste—was still locked in the mountain fortress ahead, more than ever hopelessly lost.

A missile flicked past Price’s head and clattered startlingly on the bare lava. He heard the clatter of running feet, a hoarse shout of rage and hate. Still dazed, stiff of movement, Price staggered to his feet, turned to face the assailant who had crept up behind him in the twilight.

Wicked yellow
yataghan
upraised, the man was charging at him in the dusk, a dozen yards away.
A tall Arab in a queerly hooded robe of blue.
He must, like Price, be a survivor of the battle. He limped as he ran, or hopped grotesquely. And one side of his face was red horror, from which a wild eye, miraculously unharmed, glared with fanatic hate. On his high forehead was the gleaming yellow brand of a coiled serpent.

17. THE SLAVE OF THE SERPENT

AS PRICE DURAND stumbled to his feet, the world tilted and spun beneath him. His head drummed with pain. He reeled, and fought to keep his balance, while the stony
wadi
floor, strewn with the dead, whirled around him.

The black, basaltic mass of
Hajar Jehannum,
its gold-and-marble crown sullen in the red sunset, was first on one hand, then on the other. A wave of blackness rose about him, receded. Then the rocking desert steadied.

For a moment Price lost his attacker. Then he saw the Arab again, limping fiercely forward, whirling the
yataghan.
One leg half dragging, he came with a series of bounding hops. Half his face was a scarlet, grinning smear; in his eyes was the lust of the killer.

Price fought to master his dizziness, and staggered backward to gain time. The heavy golden ax lay on the ground behind him, but he had neither time to reach it, nor strength, at the moment, to wield it.

He stumbled on the rough lava, swayed, regaining his balance with difficulty. But a measure of his strength was returning.

In a flash the snake-man was upon him, silent, breathing with quick, hot gasps like a struggling animal, driven by savage, fanatic hate. The double-curved
yataghan
swung up, and Price darted forward beneath it, one hand rushing for the Arab’s sword-arm.

The mad rush of the wounded man flung them together. Despite Price’s guarding arm, the yellow blade came against his side, rasping upon the linked golden mail he wore. Then his arms were around the snake-man, and they toppled together to the stony ground.

With demoniac energy the Arab tried to tear himself free, to use his wicked blade. Price clung desperately to his hold, biting his lip to keep back dizziness.

Suffering only from concussion and exhaustion, his muscles stiffened from his long period of unconsciousness, Price was steadily recovering his strength with activity. And the snake-man, having lost much blood, animated merely by blind, mad hatred, rapidly collapsed.

His struggles weakened, and suddenly he relaxed in Price’s arms, unconscious. The wound in his thigh was bleeding, opened again by his struggles.

Appropriating the
yataghan,
Price moved a little away and stood, breathing hard, warily watching the snake-man.

“Mr. Durand?” Price started as the interrogative voice spoke unexpectedly behind him. He whirled, to see the tall, lank Kansan, Sam Sorrows, staggering up behind him, arms laden.

“Why, Sam!” he ejaculated.

“Thought it must be you, Mr. Durand, in that golden coat.
I didn’t know there was anybody else alive around here.”

“I didn’t either, Sam. But there were three of us.”

“Three?”

Price pointed to the unconscious Arab.

“Tie him up,” the Kansan said, “and come on over to the tank. I’ve some loot here, for supper.” He nodded at the bundles in his arms.

Price bound the snake-man’s wrists and ankles with
kafiyehs
taken from the dead Beni Anz warriors, roughly bandaged his bleeding thigh-wound, which was shallow and not serious, and followed Sam Sorrows to the side of the tank, where the old man was unloading his burden—small sacks of dried dates, coarse flour, and dried, powdered camel-flesh; and a full water-skin.

“Found these up in the trenches.” He nodded across the
wadi.

Squatting by the gray metal bulk looming in the dusk, they ate and drank.

“The mirrors got you, in the tank?” Price said after a time.

“Yes. Mawson was with me.
The limey.
He’s dead. I was down driving. Guess I was better protected. But I must have been out quite a while.

“I was pretty sick when I came to.
Cold as hell, shivering all over.
And Mawson there, already stiff. I started to crawl out in the sunshine.

“I got my head out the manhole, and saw a lot of Arabs around the tank. Everything was quiet. All were looking up in the mirage, at that damned snake. The thing was swaying back and forth. Had
them
all charmed. I didn’t more than glance at it, believe me!

“Then I saw the old tiger, standing there, big as an elephant, with the saddle on him. And a yellow man, down in front of him, stabbing those fellows that were looking in the mirage.

“Then you went at the yellow feller, and he knocked you out with a rock.

“About that time, I guess, some of the others were coming out of that damned spell. I heard the cannon go off a time or two, and shrapnel screaming over. The yellow man ran for his tiger again, and the Arabs broke and beat it. About that time I went under again.”

“Jacob Garth?” demanded Price. “He got away?”

“I think so.
Looked like they were packing up the guns when I went out again.
Guess they’d had enough.”

“What are you planning to do?”

“I was feeling pretty much knocked out when I came around again, an hour or so ago.” The old man laughed a little.
“Went out to see about rations.
Thought I’d sleep aboard tonight, and try running back to the oasis in the morning. That okay with you? We ought to make it by noon.”

Price merely nodded. He was thinking.

Returning to his captive an hour later, Price found the snake-man conscious again. After a moment’s effort against his bonds, he
lay
quiet, glaring up at Price with hate-filled eyes.

“Who are you?” Price asked, in the archaic Arabic of the Beni Anz.

He did not answer, but the stubborn movement of his head, in the moonlight, told Price that he had understood.

Price returned to the tank, where Sam Sorrows was tinkering with his motor in anticipation of an early start, and brought back a canteen half full of water. He sloshed it noisily beside the man and repeated the question.

After half an hour, the Arab moved, and a voice spoke from the red ruin of his face:

“I am Kreor, a slave of the snake, under Malikar, priest of the snake.”

And he whimpered for the water.

“No,” Price told him. “You must tell me more, and promise to help me, if you would drink again.”

“I am sworn to the snake,” the man hissed. “And you are Iru, the ancient enemy of the snake and of Malikar. The eyes of the snake will seek me out and slay me, if I betray it.”

“I’ll see you are
dakhile
[protected],” Price assured him. “Forget the snake, if you would drink, and serve me.”

A long time the Arab was silent, staring scornfully up into the moon-swept sky. Price felt a surge of pity for him. He was near abandonment of his plan, when the snake-man whispered.

“So be it. I renounce the snake, and the service of Malikar under the snake. I am your slave, Iru. And
dakhile?”

“Dakhile,”
Price assured him again. But the voice of the Arab had a ring of cunning duplicity that he did not like. He wished that the moonlight were brighter, so that he could see the man’s face.

“Now give me water, Lord Iru.”

Price thrust back his feelings again.

“First you must prove yourself. Answer me this question: Where is the girl named Aysa, whom Malikar brought from Anz?”

The snake-man hesitated, spoke reluctantly: “Aysa sleeps in the mists of gold, in the serpent’s lair.”

“What’s that? Where is the serpent’s lair?”

“Under the mountain.
In the temple above the abyss of the mists of gold.”

“Asleep, you say. What does that mean?” Panic edged his voice. “You don’t mean she’s dead?”

“No. She sleeps the long sleep of the golden vapor. Malikar honors her. She becomes one of the golden folk.”

“Better explain this a little,” Price said, menacingly. “Tell a straight story, if you want to drink again. What’s this about golden mist?”

Again the Arab hesitated, glaring at him with crafty eyes in which hate was not wholly dead. Price sloshed the canteen; the other yielded.

“In the caverns beneath the mountain rises the vapor of gold, the breath of life. They who breathe it sleep. And sleeping, they become golden, as Malikar is golden, and deathless.”

“Aysa, then, is being turned into gold?” Price inquired, incredulous.

“Yes. Soon her blood will be golden. When she wakes she will be priestess of the snake. And Vekyra indeed is wroth to know that Malikar has tired of
her.”

“Vekyra?”
Price queried. “Who’s she?”

“She is the old priestess of the snake.
A woman of gold.
Priestess—and Malikar’s mistress.”

“She’s the one we saw in the mirage, over the mountain.”

“In the sky?
Yes. She is mistress also of the shadow. Vekyra has power of her own. Malikar will not easily be rid of her.”

Price did not trust the man. Truth was hardly to be expected from a bound, helpless prisoner, who had been at one’s throat an hour before. Moreover, thinly veiled hatred and scorn crept again and again into his voice. But, obviously, the Arab did not want to die. Some aid, some true information might be got from him. It would be a game of wits between them.