Slave of the Ship

Chapter Nine

The drummer set Kenton on his feet, regarding him with curious, half-amused eyes. Agate eyes of the red bearded warrior and pale eyes of Klaneth dwelt upon him as curiously. But in the last was no amusement. No!

As curiously Kenton took stock of the three. First the black priest—massive, elephant thewed; flesh sallow and dead as though the blood flowed through veins too deeply imbedded to reveal the creep of its slow tide; the vulture nose and merciless lips; the feral phosphorescence glimmering behind the wan pupils; the face of Nero remodelled from cold clay by numbed hands of sluggish god within some frozen hell. Heavy; plastic with evil—but not that hot evil which often touching life is absorbed within and transformed by life’s fire. The evil in Klaneth’s face was a cold evil and one with death. And as unalterable as death.

Then Gigi—the drummer. His froglike face with the pointed, jet hung ears; his stunted and bowed legs; his giant’s body above the hips; the gigantic shoulders whence swung the long and sinewy and apish arms whose strength Kenton had felt; the slit of a mouth in whose corners a malicious humor dwelt. Something of old earth gods about him; a touch of Pan; more than a touch of Satyr.

Red beard—a Persian out of that time when Persia’s hordes were to the world what later the Roman legions were to be. Or so Kenton judged him by his tunic of linked light mail, the silken sheathed legs, the high buskins and the curved daggers and the scimitar in his jeweled belt. And human as Kenton himself. About him was none of the charnel flavor of Klaneth nor the goat rankness of Gigi. The full red lips beneath the carefully trimmed beard were sensual, life loving; the body burly and muscular; the face whiter than Kenton’s own. But it was sullen and stamped deep with a half-resigned, half-desperate boredom that even his lively and frank curiosity about Kenton lightened but little.

They said nothing; only stood there measuring him; and each, so it seemed to Kenton, with different purpose. He turned his eyes from them; looked about him.

In front of him was a wide slab of bloodstone. Six priests knelt upon it, worshiping something that stood within a niche just above the slab. What it was he could not tell—except that it breathed out evil. A little larger than a man, the thing within the niche was black and formless as though made of curdling shadows. It quivered, pulsated—as though the shadows that were its substance thickened constantly about it, passed within it, were replaced swiftly by others.

Dark was that cabin, the walls somber as dull black marble. Other shadows clung to those dark walls and clustered in the corners; subtle, sinister shadows that seemed only to await command to deepen into substance. Unholy shadows—like those that clothed the evil thing within the niche.

Beyond, as in the cabin of Sharane, was another chamber, and crowding at the door between, glaring out at him, were a dozen or more of the black robed, white faced priests.

“Go to your places.” Klaneth turned to them, breaking the silence. They slipped away. The black priest closed the door upon them. He touched the nearest of the kneeling priests with his foot.

“Our Lord Nergal has had enough of worship,” he said. “See—he has swallowed your prayers!”

Kenton looked at the thing within the niche. It was no longer misty, shadowed. It stood out, clear cut. Its body was that of a man and its face was that same awesome visage of evil into which he had seen the black priest’s turn on that first adventure of his upon the ship.

The face of Nergal—Lord of the Dead!

What had been the curdled, quivering shades enveloping the statue? What was it Klaneth had said—that Nergal had swallowed their prayers? Had the shadows really been that—the prayers of the priests? Black prayers, evil prayers, streaming out of the minds of the priests like black mists, shrouding the image, passing into it? Swallowed by it!

He felt the eyes of Klaneth searching him, covertly. A trick! A trick to frighten him. He met the black priest’s gaze squarely; smiled.

The Persian laughed.

“Hai, Klaneth,” he said. “There was a bolt that fell far short. Mayhap the stranger has seen such things before. Mayhap he is a sorcerer himself and can do better things. Change your play, Klaneth, change your play.”

He yawned and seated himself upon a low settle. The black priest’s face grew grimmer.

“Best be silent, Zubran,” he said. “Else it may be that our Lord Nergal will change his play for you in a way to banish forever your disbelief.”

“Disbelief?” echoed the Persian. “Oh, Nergal is real enough. It is not disbelief that irks me. It is the eternal monotony. Can you do nothing new, Klaneth? Can Nergal do nothing new? Change his play for me, eh? By Ahriman—that is just what I wish he would do, if he can!”

He yawned again, ostentatiously. The black priest growled; turned to the six worshipers.

“Go,” he ordered, “and send Zachel to me.”

They filed through the outer door. The black priest dropped upon another settle, studying Kenton somberly; the drummer squatted, also watching him; the Persian muttered to himself, playing with his dagger hilts. The door opened again and into the cabin stepped a priest who held in one hand a long whip whose snaky lash, metal tipped, was curled many times around his forearm. He bowed low before Klaneth.

“The slaves sleep?” asked the black priest.

“They sleep, master,” answered he called Zachel. And now Kenton recognized him. When he had lain on the deck close to the mast he had seen this man sitting on a high platform at the foot of that mast. Overseer of the galley slaves, the oarsmen, was Zachel, and that long lash measured to flick the furtherest of them if they lagged.

“Is this he whom you saw upon the deck some sleeps ago when our Lord Nergal poured into me?” asked Klaneth. “He who lay there and, you say, vanished even as that cursed drab of Ishtar yonder bent over to touch him?”

“He is the same, master,” answered the overseer, coming close to Kenton and scanning him. “He was not dressed the same as now—but he is the same.”

“Where went he then?” asked Klaneth, more to himself than to the other. “To the drab’s cabin? But if so—why did she drive him out, her cats clawing him? And whence came this garb he wears—and the sword she waved and bade him come retake? I know that sword—”

“He went not into her cabin at that time, master,” said Zachel. “I saw her seek for him. She went back to her place alone. He had—vanished.”

“And his driving forth,” mused Klaneth, “that was two sleeps ago. And the ship has sailed far since then. We saw him struggling in the waves far behind us. Yet here he is upon the ship again—and with the wound those temple furies gave him still fresh, still bleeding as though it had been but a moment gone. And how passed he the barrier? Yea—how passed he the barrier?”

“Ah, at last you have stumbled on a real question, Klaneth,” cried the Persian. “Let him but tell me that, let him but teach me that—and, by the Nine Hells, not long would I sit in this company.”

Kenton saw the drummer make a swift and warning gesture to Zubran, saw the black priest’s eyes narrow menacingly, his face grow grim, indeed.

“Ho! ho!” laughed Gigi. “Zubran but jests, Klaneth. Would he not find life there as tiresome as he pretends to find it with us? Is it not so, Zubran?”

Again he made the fleet, warning sign. And the Persian heeded it.

“Yes, I suppose that is so,” he answered, grudgingly. “At any rate—am I not sworn to Nergal? Nevertheless,” he muttered, “the gods gave women one art that has not grown tiresome since first they made the world.”

“They lose that art in Nergal’s abode,” said the black priest, grimly. “There is no loving there, Zubran. Best remember that and curb that tongue of yours lest you find yourself in a worse place than here—where at least you have your body.”

“May I speak, master?” asked Zachel; and Kenton felt malignancy, threat, in the glance the overseer shot at him.

The black priest nodded.

“I think he passed the barrier because he knows naught of our Lord,” said Zachel. “Indeed—may be an enemy of our Lord. If not—why was he able to shake off the hands of your priests, vanish in the sea—and return?”

“Enemy of Nergal!” Klaneth started.

“But it does not follow that he is friend of Ishtar,” put in the drummer, smoothly. “True if he were sworn to the Dark One he could not pass the barrier. But true it is also that were he sworn to Ishtar equally would that have been impossible.”

“True!” Klaneth’s face cleared. “And I know that sword. Nabu’s own blade.”

He was silent for a moment; thoughtful. When he spoke there was courtesy in the thick voice.

“Stranger,” he said, “if we have used you roughly, forgive us. Visitors are rare upon this ship. You—let me say—startled us out of our manners. Zachel, loose his bonds.”

The overseer bent and sullenly set Kenton free of his thongs.

“If, as I think, you came from Nabu,” went on the black priest, “I tell you that I have no quarrel with the Wise One or his people. Nor is my Master, the Lord of Death, ever at odds with the Lord of Wisdom. How could he be when one carries the keys of knowledge of this life, and the other the key that unlocks the door of the ultimate knowledge? Nay, there is no quarrel there. Are you a favored one of Nabu? Did he set you on the ship? And—why?”

Silent was Kenton, searching desperately for some way to answer the black priest. Temporize with him as he had with Sharane, he knew he could not. Nor, he knew, was it of any use to tell him the truth as he had to her—and been driven out like a hunted rat for it. Here was danger; peril, greater than he had faced in the rosy cabin. Klaneth’s voice cut in:

“But favored of Nabu as you may be, that could not save you from losing your sword nor from the javelin of the women. And if that is so—can it save you from my whips, my chains? And worse?”

And as Kenton stood, still silent, the wolf light flared in the dead pupils and the black priest leaped to his feet crying:

“Answer me!”

“Answer the Lord Klaneth!” roared Gigi. “Has fear of him killed your tongue?”

Under the apparent anger of the drummer’s voice Kenton sensed a warning; friendliness. And Gigi had not told of his second appearance on the ivory deck, his entering of Sharane’s cabin. Why?

“If that favor could have saved me, at least it did not,” he said.

The black priest dropped back upon the settle, chuckling.

“Nor I think could it save you if I decreed your death,” he said.

“Death—if he decrees it,” croaked Gigi.

“Whoever you are,” went on the black priest, “whence you come, or how—one thing is sure. You have power to break a chain that irks me. Nay, Zachel, stay,” he spoke to the overseer who had made a move to go. “Your counsel is also good. Stay!”

“There is a slave dead at the oars,” said the overseer. “I would loose his chains and cast him over.”

“Dead?” There was new interest in Klaneth’s voice. “Which was he? How died he?”

“Who knows?” Zachel shrugged his shoulders. “Of weariness, maybe. He was one of those who first set sail with us. He who sat beside the yellow haired slave from the North that we bought at Emakhtila.”

“Well—he has served long,” said the black priest. “Nergal hath him. Let his body bear his chains a little longer. Stay with me.”

He spoke again to Kenton, deliberately, finally.

“Bearer of Nabu’s sword,” he said. “I offer you freedom. I offer you riches and power. I will give you honors and wealth in Emakhtila whence we shall sail as soon as you have done my bidding. There you shall have priesthood and a temple if you so desire. Gold and women and rank—if you will do what I desire. And if you will not—then torture such as few men have known. And long, oh very long after that—death.”

“What is your desire that will win me all this?” asked Kenton.

The black priest arose and bent his head so that his eyes looked straight into Kenton’s own.

“Slay Sharane!” he said.

Slay Sharane? Slay Sharane! And despite her wrath—her kisses still sweet on his lips! The thought shook him to the depths of his being. He steadied; cast about for something that would let him play for time.

“Little meat in that plan, Klaneth,” the Persian spoke, mockingly. “Did you not see her girls beat him? As well send to conquer a lioness a man who has already been conquered by her cubs.”

“Nay,” said Klaneth, “I meant not for him to pass over the open deck where surely her watchers would see him. He can clamber round the ship’s hull—from chain to chain, ledge to ledge. Or we can still the oars, drop the sail, becalm the ship. Then he can slip down into the water, swim silently to the bow. There is a window behind the cabin wherein she sleeps. Up to it and through it he can creep—”

“Best swear him to Nergal before he takes that road, master,” Zachel interrupted. “Else we may never have him back again.”

“Fool!” Gigi spoke. “If he makes his vows to Nergal perhaps he cannot go at all. For how know we that then the barrier will not be closed to him as it is to us who are sworn to the Dark One, even as it is to those who are sworn to Ishtar?”

“True,” nodded the black priest. “We dare not risk that. Well spoken, Gigi.”

In Kenton’s mind a plan had begun to form.

“Why should she be slain?” he asked. “Let me take her for slave that I may repay her for her mockery and her blows. Give her to me—and you may keep all the riches and honors you have offered. So greatly do I hate her!”

“No!” The black priest leaned closer, searching more intently the eyes of Kenton. “She must be slain. While she lives the Goddess has a vial into which to pour herself. Sharane dead—Ishtar has none on this ship through whom she may make herself manifest. This, I, Klaneth, know. Sharane dead—Nergal rules. Through me! Nergal wins. Through me!”

In Kenton’s mind the plan had formed. He would promise to do this—to slay Sharane. He would creep into her cabin, tell her of the plot. Some way, some how, make her believe him. And then he would take the sword, creep back the way he had come and slay Klaneth. But—could he do this? A sudden doubt touched him as he looked at the bulk of the black priest, the three others. And then—there were the black robed pack. Could he, alone, meet all these? Slay Klaneth?

The doubt fled. Something whispered that neither Gigi nor the Persian would fight against him; that there was some secret understanding between those two—some deep hatred of the black priest. Else why the drummer’s covert warning to Zubran? And why the peculiar protection for himself that he had sensed in Gigi during all this encounter? Why—again—Gigi’s silence to Klaneth on Kenton’s second sailing on the ship? Was the beater of the serpent drum tired as Zubran of life on the black deck? Eager to see Klaneth overcome? Yet by vows the strength of which he could not understand made powerless to harm the black priest?

Too late he saw by the black priest’s face that something of all this had been revealed in his own—that Klaneth had caught his thought! Too late remembered that the sharp, malignant eyes of the overseer had been watching him, losing no fleeting change of expression; interpreting!

“Look, master!” Zachel snarled. “Look! Can you not read his thought, even as I? See what it is he plans? You have held me here for counsel and have called my counsel good—then let me speak what is in my mind. I thought that he had vanished from beside the mast, even as I told you. But did he? The gods come and go upon the ship as they will. But no man does! We thought we saw him struggling in the waves far behind the ship. But did we? By sorcery he may have made us see that which in reality was not! Upon the ship he must have lain all this while, hid in Sharane’s cabin. Out of her cabin we saw him come—”

“But driven forth by her women, Zachel,” broke in the drummer. “Cast out. Beaten. Remember that. There was no friendship there, Klaneth. They were at his throat like hounds tearing down a deer.”

“A play!” cried Zachel. “A play to trick you, master. They could have killed him. Why did they not? Why his wounds are but pin pricks. They drove him, yes. But over to us! Sharane knew he could cross the barrier, even as now do you. Would she have made gift to us of new strength unless—she had a purpose? And what could that purpose have been, master? Only one. To place him here to slay you—even as you now plan to send him to slay her!

“He is a strong man—and lets himself be beaten by girls! He had a sword, a sharp blade and a holy one—and he lets a woman take it!

“Ho! Ho!” laughed Zachel. “Do you believe all this, master? Well—I do not!”

“By Nergal!” Klaneth swore, dead face livid, eyes aflame with witch light. “Now by Nergal—!”

Suddenly he gripped Kenton by the shoulders, hurled him through the cabin door and out upon the deck. Swiftly he followed him; set heavy foot upon Kenton’s breast.

“Sharane!” he howled. “Sharane!”

Kenton raised his head, dizzily; saw her standing beside the cabin door, arms around the slim waists of two of her damsels.

“Well—toad?” she called.

“Nergal and Ishtar are busy elsewhere,” he mocked. “Life on the ship grows dull. There is a slave under my feet. A lying slave. Do you know him, Sharane?”

He bent and lifted Kenton high, as a man a child. Her face, cold, contemptuous, did not change.

“He is nothing to me—worm,” she answered. “I drove him forth. To you, where he belongs. Do as you will with your own. It is nothing to me.”

Beneath her stillness the black priest must have seen something hidden to Kenton, for the dead eyes brightened, the lips curled with cruel delight. He dropped Kenton roughly to the deck.

“Nothing to you, eh?” roared Klaneth. “Yet it was by your will that he came to me. Well—he has a lying tongue, Sharane. By the old law of the slaves shall he be punished for it. I will pit four of my men against him. If he master them I shall keep him for awhile—to amuse us further. But if they master him—then shall his lying tongue be torn from him. And I will give it to you as a token of my love—O Sacred Vessel of Ishtar!

“Ho! Ho!” laughed the black priest as Sharane shrank, paling. “A test for your sorceries, Sharane. To make that tongue speak! Make it—” the thick voice purred—“make it whisper of love to you. Tell you how beautiful you are, Sharane. How wonderful—ah, sweet Sharane! Reproach you a little, too, perhaps for sending it to me to be torn out!

“Ho! Ho!” laughed Klaneth; then as though he spat the words—“You temple slut!”

He thrust a light whip in Kenton’s hands.

“Now fight, slave!” he snarled, “fight for your lying tongue!”

Four of the priests leaped forward, drawing from beneath their robes thongs tipped with metal. They circled, and before Kenton could gather his strength, could realize how menaced, they were upon him. They darted about him like four lank wolves; slashing at him with their whips. Blows flailed upon his head, his naked shoulders. Awkwardly he tried to parry, to return them. The metal tips bit deep. From shoulders, chest, back, a slow rain of blood began to drip.

A thong caught him across the face, half blinding him.

Far away, he heard the golden voice of Sharane, shrill with scorn.

“Slave—can you not even fight!”

Cursing, he dropped his useless whip. Close before him was the grinning face of the priest who had struck him. Ere his lash could be raised again the fist of Kenton had smashed squarely on the leering mouth. He felt beneath his knuckles the bones of the nose crumble, the teeth shatter. The priest crashed back; went rolling to the rail.

Instantly the other three were upon him; tearing at his throat, clawing him, striving to drag him down. He broke loose. The three held back for an instant; then rushed. One there was a little in front of the others. Kenton caught him by an arm, twisted that arm over his shoulder, set hip to prisoned flank, heaved and hurled the priest through air against the pair poised to strike. Out flung the body; fell short. The head crashed against the deck. There was a sharp snap, like a breaking faggot. For a moment the body stood shoulders touching deck, legs writhing as though in grotesque mid-somersault. Then crumpled and lay still.

“Well thrown!” he heard the Persian shout. “There is one who will never use lash again!”

Long fingers clutched his ankles; his feet flew from beneath him. As he fell he caught glimpse of a face staring up at him, a face that was but one red smear; the face of the first priest he had battered down and who, recovering, had crept along the deck and thrown him. Falling, Kenton swept out his arms. They clutched one of the two against whom he had hurled that priest who now lay dead, neck broken. They dragged him down.

He whom Kenton had caught writhed, twisted and clutched his throat. With the strangling grip there flashed into his mind a dreadful thing he had seen done in another unequal combat upon a battlefield in France. Up swept his right hand, the first two fingers extended. They found place in the eye sockets of the throttler; pressed there cruelly; pressed there relentlessly. He heard a howl of agony; tears of blood spurted over his hands; the choking fingers dropped from his throat. Where eyes had been were now two raw red sockets with dreadful pendants hanging glaring down beneath each.

Kenton leaped to his feet. He stamped upon the crimson smeared face looking up at him. Stamped once, twice, thrice—and the grip about his ankles was gone.

He caught a glimpse of Sharane, white faced, wide eyed; realized that the laughter of the black priest was stilled.

At him rushed the fourth acolyte, a broad-leafed knife gleaming in his grip. Kenton bent his head, rushed to meet him. He caught the hand that held the blade; bent the arm back; heard the bone snap. The fourth priest shrieked and fell.

He saw Klaneth, mouth loose, staring at him.

Straight for the black priest’s throat he leaped, right fist swinging upward to the jaw as he sprang. But the black priest thrust out his arms, caught him in mid-leap. Then lifted him high over his head; balanced him there to dash him down upon the deck. Kenton closed his eyes—this, then, was the end.

Came the voice of the Persian, urgent, agonized.

“Hai, Klaneth! Hai! Kill him not! It is long since I have seen such a fight! By Ishak of the Hollow Hell—kill him not, Klaneth! Save him to fight again!”

Then the drummer—

“Nay, Klaneth! Nay!” He felt the talons of Gigi catch him; hold him tight in double grasp. “Nay, Klaneth! He fought fairly and well. He would be a rare one to have with us. Mayhap he will change his mind—with discipline. Remember, Klaneth—he is the only one of us who can pass the barrier.”

The great bulk of the black priest trembled. Slowly his hands began to lower Kenton.

“Discipline? Ha!” It was the snarling voice of the overseer. “Give him to me, master, in the place of the slave who died at the oar. I will teach him—discipline.”

The black priest dropped Kenton on the deck; stood over him for a moment. Then he nodded, turned abruptly, and stalked into his cabin. Kenton, reaction seizing him, huddled; hands clasping knees.

“Unchain the dead slave and cast him over, Zachel,” he heard Gigi say. “I will watch this man till you return.”

Kenton heard the overseer patter away. The drummer bent over him.

“Well fought, wolf cub,” he whispered. “Well fought! Now to your chains. Obey. Your chance shall come. Do as I say, wolf cub—and I will do what I may.”

He walked away. Kenton, wondering, raised his head. He saw the drummer stoop, lift the body of the priest with the broken neck and with one sweep of his long arm send it whirling over the ship’s rail. Bending again he sent after it the body of him upon whose face Kenton had stamped. He paused speculatively before the wailing, empty socketed horror stumbling and falling about the deck. Then, grinning cheerfully, he lifted it by the knees and tossed it overboard.

“Three less to worry about hereafter,” muttered Gigi.

A tremor shook Kenton; his teeth chattered; he sobbed. The drummer looked down on him with amused wonder.

“You fought well, wolf cub,” he said. “Then why do you now quiver like a whipped hound whose half chewed bone has been cast away?”

He laid both hands on Kenton’s bleeding shoulders. Under their touch he steadied. It was as though through Gigi’s hands flowed some current of cold strength of which his soul drank. As though he had tapped some ancient spring, some still pool of archaic indifference both to life and death, the cold current ran through him.

And never again, although then he knew it not, was Kenton to feel for either life or death that respect or fear which, in his own world, were their legitimate shadows. All that he then realized was that whatever weakness of spirit within him there had been—was gone. Gone, too, all remorse, all shrinking from his brutalities.

In its place welled reckless will to conquer this ship!

Become its master!

Conquer Klaneth and his Dark God!

Conquer—

Sharane!

“Good!” said Gigi, and stood up. “Forget not. Now Zachel comes for you.”

The overseer was beside him; touched his shoulder; pointed down a short flight of steps that led from the black deck to the galley-pit. Zachel behind him, he groped down those steps into the half darkness of the pit. He stumbled along a narrow passageway; was brought to halt at a great oar over whose shank bent from white, muscle-gnarled shoulders a head, golden haired, long haired, as any woman’s. This golden haired oarsman slept. Around his waist was a thick bronze ring. From this ring a strong chain swung, its end fastened to a staple sunk deep in the back of the bench on which he sat. His wrists were manacled. The oar on which his head rested was manacled, too. Between manacled wrists and manacled oar two other strong chains stretched.

There was an empty chained circlet at the sleeper’s left side; on the oar at his left two empty manacles hung from chains.

Zachel pushed Kenton down on the bench beside the sleeping, golden haired oarsman; swiftly and deftly girdled his waist with the empty bronze circlet; snapped it close; locked it.

He thrust Kenton’s unresisting hands through the manacles dangling from the oar; closed them on him; locked them.

The golden haired giant never moved; slept on upon his hands, head bent over the oar.

And suddenly Kenton felt warmth of eyes upon him; looked behind him; saw leaning over the rail the face of Sharane! There was pity in her face; wonder, too; and dawning of something that set his heart to beating wildly.

“I’ll discipline you—never fear!” said Zachel.

Kenton looked behind him again.

Sharane was gone.

He bent over his oar beside the sleeping giant.

Bent over his oar—

Chained to it!

Slave of the ship!