The Despair of Kenton

Chapter Twenty-Three

Dark it was within the Temple of the Seven Zones; darker still was the corridor into which they wheeled after they had left the gateway behind them; and as they marched on darker and ever darker it became. Now Kenton could no longer see the pair who flanked him nor the triple ring of armored men that girded them. He wondered how they could find their way through this lightless place. And the sound of the triple ring’s marching feet—why had that grown so faint?

So faint!

There was no longer sound of marching feet—no longer sound of any kind!

Nothing but soft, blind, silent darkness—

Wait! Far, far away, piercing the dark silence, he heard the shrieking of winds—mighty winds roaring out of the farthest corners of space. Closer they came. They clamored and circled about him!

And now he too was circling, swinging in wide arcs through the blackness—falling!

Panic realization shook him! He strained at his bonds, trying to break them, to stretch out hands, clutch something, some one, to stay his headlong flight—

Flight from Sharane’s world into—his own!

“Not back!” he wailed. “Not that! Gigi! Sigurd! Help me! Ishtar! Nabu! Hold me—”

The mouths of the winds closed; the sickening flight came abruptly to end. Had—They—heard? Answered?

Gasping, he slowly opened eyes. Opened them—and felt cold fingers of despair close round his heart.

Again he was within his own room!

A clock began to strike. One—two—his numbed mind counted the strokes.

Eleven!

Eleven o’clock! Then only an hour had gone by since he had last stood here, his life blood running out of his wounds. Why—that blood was not yet dry upon the rugs! And here he stood, the sword bites from which that blood had run long healed; old scars!

A glance only he gave himself in the long mirror; one glance at the haggard white face, the despairing eyes that were his own; the thongs that lashed his arms to sides. He looked down on the jeweled ship. The oars were in; the peacock sail was furled. He saw the slaves in the galley pit—toys; toys crouching, flung lengthwise, on the benches—asleep. The overseer, a toy of jet, leaned forward, chin cupped in hands. At the door of Sharane’s cabin a girl looked forth, head raised, her eyes of tiny blue gems scanning an unseen sky.

Toys upon a toy ship!

A ship of toys—and still the only key to a world that held for him all realities!

He knelt, sobbing.

“Ishtar! Great Mother! Take me back! Nabu! Lord of Wisdom! Show me the way! Lead me—”

He stopped—the cold fingers around his heart clutching tighter. What if he did get back upon the ship? How could that help him? Never, he knew, could he retrace that hidden path along which the Viking had led them. And if by any miracle he might—still it would not help. Long before he could reach the city, long before he could search out the others, the dice would have been cast! The issue decided!

And if he did not leave the ship and they returned—found him lurking there—what would they think of him! That he had abandoned them, had fled like a craven, had left them to bear the burden of rescue of the woman he loved!

How could they think else?

But no! No—they would not return!

They would not leave the city, would not return to the ship—without him. Not Gigi, not Sigurd nor Zubran, not—Sharane! There they would stay, searching for him. And not long could be that search before they were taken—marked men and woman as they were!

That thought was even harder to bear.

And yet, if he did not get back to that unknown world—all, all was lost to him! Everything! All sweetness of life—all reason for living!

Sharane—lost to him forever!

He groaned, in agony of despair, of shame, of longing.

A wild hope swept him! Whatever power it was that sent him swinging like a pendulum between these two worlds—could not that power set him otherwhere than on the Ship of Ishtar? Aye! But what of that mysterious factor of time—the time that there rushed so much more swiftly than here? The time that in a few hours had changed him from scholarly weakling to the steel-thewed, steel-nerved man he was! Swifter, far swifter that time flowed—and yet, flowing, it left untouched, unchanged, each living thing. Could not the—Powers—that ruled this world hold back that world’s time at their will; turn it back?

Upon the mercy of those powers he would throw himself, entirely, without reserves!

Kenton leaned forward until his forehead touched the side of the shining ship.

“Ishtar! Goddess! Mother!” he prayed. “Nabu! Holy ones! I ask no freedom! I ask no strength from you! I ask but one thing—to set me back! Not to the ship but from whence I came! Give me again to Klaneth! Set me among his men even as I was. And if that means torment, if that means death—I am content! Set me there as I was, bound and helpless—and whatever may happen, whatever torment may fall to me—still will I worship and give praise to you. Ishtar—Nabu—praise to you until my last breath! Grant me this—Nabu! Ishtar!”

Under Kenton’s feet the floor rocked. Darkness fell within the room, shutting out all sight both of room and ship; a darkness such as that through which he had fallen—out of the Temple of the Seven Zones. Within that same soft, blind, silent darkness he felt himself whirled round and round, like stone on string’s end. The whirling ceased; he shot out through the blackness like the stone released; shot out; was encompassed by roaring, mighty winds.

The blackness grayed. He hovered—between two worlds. Beneath him he saw the Ship of Ishtar; looked down upon it at one and the same time from incredible heights and from close above—

“No!” groaned Kenton. “Not the ship! Mother Ishtar! Lord of Wisdom! Not the ship! Sharane! My soul for hers! Set me within the temple! Ishtar! Ishtar!—”

Inexorably, misty outlines of hull and mast contracted into solidity! Now he was poised close above the mast, was falling gently down it—hovered over the deck—

Something like a vast, white, radiant wing flashed out of the cabin of Sharane. It caught him, cradled him, enfolded him! The ship vanished from his sight.

He had sense of flight swift as lightning stroke; felt jarring fall.

“Up, slave!” he heard Klaneth snarl; the black priest’s toe was in his ribs!

“Gently, priest,” came the voice of the officer who had trapped him; he was drawn by the soldier’s hand to his feet.

As one awakening from a dream Kenton stared about him. He was in a broad, well lighted passageway; the triple ring of soldiers circling him, waiting for command to go on. All was as it had been before the blind darkness had stolen down upon him, whirled him back to his world!

Ishtar—Nabu! They had answered him—They had granted his prayer!

Kenton threw back his head; laughed.

“On!” he cried. And laughing still took up the march.

To torment—to death? What did it matter?

The burden of his despair had been lifted; come what might, now he need feel no shame.

On to torment and death—what did it matter?