The differences are too great. You could never control human thoughts as Chryseis or I could.”
Another Xanthian spoke: “But do you realize what this will do to the human race? Your Achaerans will become mindless machines under such control. Drained of life-energy, they will age and die like animals. I doubt that any will live ten seasons.”
“What of that?” shrugged Chryseis. “There are other nations nearby to draw on—Conahur, Norriki, Khemri, ultimately the world. We will have centuries, remember—we will never die!”
“And you do not care for your own race at all?”
“It will no longer be our race,” said Shorzon. “We will be gods, thinking and living and wielding such powers as they—as we ourselves right now—could never dream. Why, do what you will with our men here, to start. What does it matter?”
“But do not harm the yellow-haired man from Conahur,” said Chryseis sharply. “He’s mine—forever.”
Tsathu sat thinking, like the statue of a Khemrian beast-god cast in shining gold. Slowly, at last, he nodded, and an eerie sigh ran down the long table as the lords of the Xanthi hissed agreement.
“It will be done,” said Tsathu.
Corun stumbled back down the tunnel, reckless of discovery, blind and deaf with madness that roared in his skull. Chryseis—Chryseis—Chryseis-
It was not the horror of the scheme, the ruin that it would bring even if it failed, the revelation of how immeasurably powerful were the forces leagued against man. He could have stood that, and braced himself to fight it as long as there was breath in his lungs. But Chryseis-
She had been part of it. She had helped plan it, had coldly condemned her whole race to oblivion. She had lied to him, cheated him, betrayed him, used him, and now she wanted him for a toy, an immortal puppet—Witch! Witch! Witch!
Less human than the erinye at her feet, than the Xanthi themselves, mad with a cold madness such as he had never thought could be– Chryseis, Chryseis, Chryseis, I loved you. With all my heart, I loved you.
There was no hope in him, no longing for anything but the fullest revenge he could take before they hewed him to the ground. Had the old Xanthian wizard foretold he would bring death? Aye, by the mad cruel gods who ruled men’s destinies, he would!
He reached the corridor and began to run.
VIII
Down a long curving ramp that led into a pit of blackness—the dungeons could not be far, they lay this way.
He hugged himself into the shadows as a troop of guards went by. They were talking in their hoarse croaking language, and did not peer into the corners of the labyrinth. When they were past, Corun sped on his way.
The stone walls became rough damp tunnels, hewed out of the living rock under the castle. He groped through a blackness relieved only by the occasional dull glow of fungi. The darkness hissed and rustled with movements; he caught the glimmer of three red eyes watching, and something slithered over his bare feet. A far faint scream quivered down the hollow length of passages. It had shaken him when he was here before, but now . . . what mattered? What was important, save to kill as many of the monsters as he could before they overwhelmed him?
The tunnel opened on a great cave whose floor was a pool of oily black water. As he skirted its rim along a narrow slippery ledge, something stirred, a misshapen giant thing darker than the night. It roared hollowly and swam toward him. A wave of foul odor came with it, catching Corun’s throat in a sick dizziness.
He swayed on the edge of the pool and the swimmer began to crawl out of it toward him. Corun saw its teeth gleam wetly in the vague blue light, but there were no eyes—it was blind. He retreated along the ledge toward the farther exit. The ground trembled under the bulk of the creature.
Its jaws clashed shut behind him as he leaped free. Racing down the tunnel, he heard the bellowing of it like dull thunder through the reeking gloom. It wouldn’t follow far, but that way of return would be barred to him.
No matter, no matter. He burst out into another open space. It was lit by a dim flickering fire over which crouched three armed Xanthi. Beyond, the red light glimmered on an iron-barred doorway, and behind that there were figures stirring. Men!
Corun bounded across the floor, the sword shrieking in his hand. It whirled down to crash through the skull-bones of one guard. Before he could free it, the other two were on him.
He ducked a murderous pike thrust and slipped close to the wielder, stabbing upward with his dagger. The Xanthian screamed and hugged Corun close to himself, fastening his jaws in the man’s shoulder. Corun slashed wildly, ripping open the throat. They tumbled to the ground, locked in each other’s arms, raging like beasts. Corun’s knife glanced off the Xanthian’s ribs and he felt the steel snap over. He got both hands into the clamped jaws, heedless of the fangs, and wrenched. The jawbone cracked as he forced the reptile’s mouth open.
He rolled from beneath the still feebly struggling creature and glared around for the third. That one lay in a hacked ruin against the cell; he had backed up too close to the bars, and the men inside still had their weapons.
Gasping, Corun climbed, to his feet. An eager baying of fierce voices rolled out from the cell; men gripped the bars and howled in maddened glee.
“Corun—Captain Corun—get us out of here—let us out to rip Shorzon’s guts loose—Aaarrrgh!”
The Conahurian lurched over to a dead Xanthian at whose waist hung a bundle of keys. His hands shook as he tried them in the lock. When he got the door open, the men were out in a single tide.
He leaned heavily on an Umlotuan’s arm. “What happened to you?” he asked.
“The devils led us down here and then closed the door on us,” snarled the blue man. “Later a group of them in rich dress came down—and suddenly we saw what a slavery we’d been in to Shorzon, suddenly it no longer seemed that obedience to him was the only possible thing—Mwanzi, let me at his throat!”
“You may have that chance,” said the pirate. He felt strength returning; he stood erect and faced them in the flickering firelight. Their eyes gleamed back at him out of the shadows, fierce as the metal of their weapons.
“Listen,” he said. “We might be able to fight our way out of here, but we’d never escape across the Demon Sea. But I know a way to destroy this whole cursed house and every being in it. If you’ll follow me—”
“Aye!” The shout filled the cavern with savage thunder. They shook their weapons in the air, gleam of red-lit steel out of trembling darkness. “Aye!”
Corun picked up his sword and trotted down the nearest passageway. He was bleeding, he saw vaguely, but he felt little pain from it—he was beyond that now. The thing was to find the devil-powder. Tsathu had said it was somewhere down here.
They went along tunnel after winding tunnel, losing all sense of direction in the wet hollow dark. Corun had a sudden nightmare feeling that they might wander down here forever, blundering from cave to empty cave while eternity grayed.
“Where are we going?” asked someone impatiently. “Where are Xanthi to fight?”
“I don’t know,” snapped Corun.
