The Enchantress of World's End

The Scene: The Country of the Death Dwarves; The Land of Red Magic; The Palace and City of Shai.

New Characters: The Enchantress Zelmarine; A Karjbdan Tigerman; A Mentalist of Ning; Death Dwarves, Automatons, Courtiers, and Boys.

8. SLAVES OF ZELMARINE

If this was a prison cell, thought Ganelon Silvermane to himself, it was certainly the most comfortable one he had ever seen or heard of. Indeed, “comfortable” was hardly the mot juste: “luxurious” would be more like it.

The flooring consisted of scented fnutwoods, laid out in a complicated parquet, an arabesque of delicately-contrasting wood tones and grains. The windows, heavily barred though they were, were hung with sumptuous draperies. Thick carpets were soft underfoot, divans stood about piled with plump cushions, and small exquisite tabourets of carved Behemoth-tusk ivory (each table carved, of course, from a skigle tusk or portion of tusk) were scattered around the room. These bore a tempting variety of wines and liqueurs in cut-crystal decanters, platters of spiced meats, dainty pastries and fresh fruits. And the walls glowed with lambent tapestries of the sort for which the Spider Women of Yu are celebrated.

Galendil alone knows what the Death Dwarves would have done to him, had they been free to choose!* Just about the time he had come groggily back to consciousness, the little green men were turning then: captive over to a squadron of Red Magic soldiers. They bore him on Orniothohippus-back due east a full day’s ride, and into Shai, the capital of the Land of Red Magic.

* They would not, however, have eaten him: such forms of Anti-life commonly subsist on venom, acid, poison, excrement, ground glass, and less mentionable substances.

It only confirmed what Silvermane had earlier heard from the vapor-veiled lips of the Illusionist, who considered the Red Enchantress a prime danger to the realms about. That is, she had recently brought under her will certain tribes of Dwarfland, which bordered upon her own dominions. He did not know whether the Enchantress had alerted the border tribes of Dwarfland to be on the lookout for a Construct of his description; or whether it was standard operating procedure for the little green horrors to seize upon all intruders across their borders and turn them over to the Red Magic legionnaires. Nor did it really matter.

His first experience of Zelmarine’s country was not particularly interesting. The Ornith bore him along a winding, dusty road which meandered through rocky hills of crumbling shale, and across a plain of alkaline salt towards distant mountains. The Ornith itself he found more interesting than the dreary landscape through which it bore him.

Ornithohippus had only evolved into being about three-quarters of a million years before this time, and was thus a rank newcomer among the Gondwanish fauna. The bird horse strongly resembled an ostrich or emu, being devoid of wings, but it was a quadruped and somewhat bigger than the larger birds of our own day. The one the soldiers put him on was a handsome creature with snowy plumes and a long tapering crimson beak. It had a long graceful swan-neck, which it carried proudly arched, and from its pate a crest of nodding .plumes streamed out behind it. Cantering on its four clawed feet, it moved with fluid grace and agility. Orniths were rarely used in Zermish, Ganelon’s home-city, and he had never before been astride one of the lovely creatures.

The Red Magic legionnaires who conducted him to Shai were a surly, hard-faced lot, with copper-brown skins. They were clad in curious breastplates, gauntlets, helms, kilts and greaves made from stiff leather, lacquered a startling crimson. They rode heavily armed with sting-swords, dart-throwers, yarmaks, war hammers and pornoi, in whose use they seemed fully adept. Ganelon wisely decided resistance would be futile, if not fatal.

As they had approached Shai, the harsh landscape transformed itself into lush gardens. Doubtless, the Enchantress had employed her magic to clothe the terrain immediately adjacent to her capitol in verdure. They rode over arched bridges, across tinkling streams, through nodding groves of feather-trees. Marble statuary groups and ornamental gazebos lent a park-like flavor to the lovely landscape.

Shai itself turned out to be a miniature city of only a few thousand inhabitants. It was a splendid sight as they approached it, riding along a stone causeway across the limpid waters of an artificial lake: a graceful and artistic grouping of slender spires and minarets, placed in tasteful contrast to swelling onion-domes. The city was entirely built out of sparkling red glass*, which flashed and glittered brilliantly in the dawn-light.

* Stiffened, of course, to steely hardness by the use of F5re Magic, as had been used to toughen the precious metal of Ganelon’s weapon, the Silver Sword. See the entry on .“Magic” in the Glossary of Unfamiliar Names and Terms at the end of this book.

Entering the city by its sole gate, whose glassy barbican-towers were fantastically worked into flame-like points and flying buttresses, they traversed the miniature metropolis to the soaring cluster of pylons at its heart. This was, Ganelon assumed correctly, the Palace of the Queen of Red Magic. It consisted of nine spires of varying heights, interconnected by flying aerial bridges, with a spiral ramp enclosing the entire group.

The streets, squares and shops were virtually deserted, and the few persons they did pass on their way were a sullen-faced, dispirited lot with frightened faces and empty eyes, who shied away from the Red Magic legion. Most of the buildings they passed were soaring palaces and superb mansions whose fluted colonnades and impressive facades gleamed in the brilliance of dawn. The vistas of the city were breathtakingly lovely. But it seemed odd to the bronze giant that so many of the gorgeous glass palaces, although in perfect repair and kept immaculately cleaned and polished, seemed to be completely empty.

Shai was, he knew, a brand-new city which had arisen only in the past generation. The Queen of Red Magic herself was but newly come to Northern YamaYamaLand, having arrived in these parts somewhat less than a century ago. Rumor had it that she was the first of a race of Red Amazons who had formerly inhabited the Cham Archipelago near Thoph in the remote, virtually unknown southwestern corner of the Supercontinent. Studying the Secret Sciences at the magician’s college of Nembosch, she had discovered one of the nine-thousand ninety portals which gave entry into the Halfworld Labyrinth, a complex system of interdimensional conduits connecting several parts of this world with adjacent worlds and planes. This labyrinth, known to the scholars of legend as the “Cavern of a Thousand Perils,” exited in the Mountains of the Death Dwarves. Emerging therefrom, Zelmarine had established her dominance over the eastern half of Dwarfland and announced her empire.

The Death Dwarves had, at first, fought furiously against her kingdom; conquered by her invincible scythe-armed Automatons, they withdrew into their mountains and eventually some of the border tribes fell under Zelmarine’s dominance. She had employed the tireless vigor of her Automatons, together with the mineral strength and durance of the subservient Dwarves, to raise her capitol on the edges of the mountain country. She captured by magic whole village populations from the realms about to people her glass metropolis. This explained the cowed, subdued attitude of the few Shai citizens Ganelon had encountered on the way hither.

They enjoyed an audience with her, although he had glimpsed her once from a distance; the time she had paid a visit of state to the Hegemon of Zermish after Ganelon’s victory in the Battle of Uth had brought to an end the invasion of the Indigons.* He was not exactly looking forward to the eventual interview with his captress, for from all descriptions she was a forceful, dynamic, voluptuous woman of imperious will and dominance— exactly the sort of person the simple, inexperienced young giant felt most uncomfortable with. But he had long known of her interest in him, although her reasons were still unknown to him. Indeed, shortly before he had left his home in Zermish to enter the service of the Illusionist of Nerelon, Zelmarine had attempted to purchase him from the Hegemon of his natal city. It was all rather ominous and uncomfortable.

* For a narrative of these events, see Chapters 6 to 8 of the First Book of the Epic, entitled The Warrior of World’s End, DAW Books, 1974.

But if this was the sort of captivity she inflicted upon her slaves, he thought to himself, it certainly wasn’t hard to endure! He hadn’t eaten such sumptuous meals since leaving the enchanted palace of Nerelon, and his surroundings were of a degree of luxury he had never before enjoyed. He ate heartily, drank deeply, and slept magnificently in an emperor-sized bed piled high with silken pillows, under a gold-lame canopy.

During the day, however, there was nothing much to do. The door to his prison suite was a gigantic slab of sculptured wood whose exquisite carving and detail-work did not conceal the fact that it was tougher than iron and weighed a ton or two. And, each time his meals were served to him and he managed to catch a glimpse of the corridor beyond, he could see that the only entrance to his apartment was heavily guarded by twenty motionless but sentient metal Automatons.

Some of the hollow metal men had arms which terminated in scythes or hooks, others in sledges, power-drills and swordblades. From his former experiences back at Nerelon, where the Illusionist had maintained a few Automatons of his own for heavy work around the palace, he knew the enchanted creatures were virtually indestructible. He had little or no chance of fighting his way through such a heavy number, despite his own very-much-more-than-human strength and vigor.

Well, he decided philosophically, if one has to be enslaved by Zelmarine the Enchantress, at least durance vile under conditions of such lavishness and comfort can be suffered pleasantly.

9. THE FEAST OF THE FALLING MOON

On the second evening of Ganelon’s captivity in Shai, he met his captress at last.

The occasion was an annual feast where, in certain heathen and outlandish regions of Gondwane, such as that from which the Red Queen came, shamans and warlocks make sacrifice in order to propitiate the Moon. It should perhaps be explained that, in this distant Eon of the future, the gravitational action and tidal forces have slowed the Moon in her ancient orbit to a point where she had drawn perilously near to the surface of Old Earth—very much nearer than she has come in our own age. Some fear, indeed, that she will ere long reach Roche’s Limit and be torn apart in the grip of these forces, burying Gondwane beneath millions of tons of meteoric debris; others, perhaps less scientifically knowledgeable, assume the Moon will fall to Earth, destroying the entire planet in the collision. No one knows for sure when the calamity will befall (if I may be permitted the indulgence of an inadvertent pun), or into which category the nature of the cataclysm will go, but if you could see how threateningly huge and ominously zigzagged with cracks the face of the enormous satellite looked from the Gondwanian surface, you would certainly understand how imminent seemed the peril. Few believed such sacrificial feasts could avert the cosmic catastrophe, but a bit of propitiation never hurts.

Hook-handed Automatons clanked stiffly into GaneIon’s suite, depositing festive robes of gold and scarlet cloth, and stood motionless but wary while the giant unwillingly donned the raiment. They then escorted him from the room and, by a succession of spiral stairways, into a magnificent hall where the Red Queen sat enthroned on a chair of sparkling crystal, high above her courtiers.

The room itself was cruciform in shape, and nine storys deep. A forest of glass pillars of mammoth girth supported the roof which was transparent, permitting the silver glory of the lunar radiance—transmuted to a flood of crimson light by passage through the tinted glass—to fall in splendor upon the festive assembly. At the point where the two arms of the cross joined, was a central rotunda, in the very center of which the throne of the Red Queen sat atop a many-stepped dais like a miniature pyramid.

Red Magic legionnaires led him through the assembled feasters to the bottom-most step of this dais, and for the first time Ganelon Silvermane and the Enchantress of Shai met face to face. For a long moment, neither moved or spoke, both stared thoughtfully at each other, like swordsmen measuring an opponent’s skill before engaging their blades.

The Red Queen was a magnificent woman, nearly naked, her splendid body adorned with flashing gems and plaques of precious metals, a plumed tiara glittering upon her brow. At the height of a good seven feet, she stood very nearly as tall as Ganelon himself. She was built to scale, with powerful though feminine arms, bare shoulders and long, sleek, well-muscled but shapely legs.

The most remarkable thing about her was, of course, her famous coloration, from whence she derived her sobriquet. That is to say, the Red Enchantress was really red. Her entire body was colored a brilliant, not unattractive shade of crimson; her long waving tresses and arched, sardonic brows were also crimson, but of a shade slightly darker than the rest of her. Her eyes were of a red so dark as to be almost, but not quite, black. Her lips and the protuberant nipples of her superb breasts were of a darker red, almost plum-purple. When she smiled, Ganelon discovered that even her teeth were red, as were the whites of her eyes.

She was superb! Queenly, imperious, she towered head and shoulders above most of the men at her court, with a magnificent bosom, bare beneath glittering ropes of diamonds, a narrow waist and full, swelling hips and thighs. Tiny jewelled slippers clung to her feet and an immense cut diamond the size of a walnut flashed in her navel. When she spoke, as she did now, her voice was a low, liquid murmur, purring and seductive, but with a man’s deep-chested timbre in it, and the steely ring of command, too.

It was the sort of voice that was accustomed to being obeyed.

With a dramatic gesture, she rose suddenly to her feet, towering above them all. The mumble of low-voiced conversation in the hall ceased instantly and silence stretched taut.

Then she came swaying down the tier of steps to his level, extending one hand whose crimson fingers .dazzled with diamonds.

“Ganelon Silvermane! Be you welcome to the court of Shai. Consider yourself, not my prisoner, but—my guest!”

The Illusionist of Nerelon would have been flabbergasted at what Ganelon did next. For, summoning from within himself a courtliness none could have guessed him to possess, the young giant bowed and, taking her long fingers in his own, brushed the backs of her fingers with his lips. She smiled a delighted, warm smile, her full, lush lips curving.

“Seat yourself here,” she said, gesturing to a cushion upon the lower steps, “in the place that is reserved for heroes. And join our lunar festival, with honor and welcome!”

Ganelon nodded, sat tailor-fashion on the silken pillow and let himself be served by one of the Automatons who stalked on clanking feet among the courtiers, refilling a goblet here and presenting platters of food there.

Deliberately turning his attention from the Enchantress, he feigned interest in the other guests, who were seated on cushions in rows before long, low tabourets of dark wood. They were certainly a motley crew, thought he: among them he spied a Voormish clansman in his long burnoose, one or two of the Tigermen of Karjixia, a rather glum and lumpish-looking creature that seemed to be one of the Halfmen of Thaad, and a Horxite ecclesiastic or two in black robes and gilt-paper headdress. There were also Quentishmen and Ixlanders, a few visiting dignitaries from Oryx, Pergamoy and Sabdon in the Hegemony (or so their tartan sashes suggested), and a horde chieftain from the Dominions of Akoob Khan in the far east, to say nothing of a painted savage in feather-robes who could only have come from the Kakkawakka Islands. Beyond these, a lone, now-homeless Airmaster in glittering blue tights with winged crystal helm, and a couple of woeful-looking, long-nosed and stilt-legged Quaylies, the remainder of the Queen’s guests and courtiers originated in lands whereof he knew nothing.

For the most part, this variegated company ate, drank, dozed, chatted or caroused, ogled the dancing girls and flirted. They paid Ganelon very little attention beyond an occasional oblique and cunning glance of surreptitious appraisal. Few, if any, seemed to know who or what he was; it was probably taken for granted that he was a newcomer to the ranks of royal favorites.

The Horxite priest sat stiffly and did not deign to look in his direction, and the two Tigermen, a scruffy duo with the look of outlawry about them, ignored everyone else and devoted themselves to the meat-platters on the tabouret before them. Seated quite far from all the others sat a Death Dwarf, considerably larger, burlier and more intelligent-looking than the ones which had attacked Silvermane’ on the slopes of the Vanishing Mountains. This creature was clad in linked plates of shining steel and wore a coronet of iron spikes upon his wart-studded bald brows. Ganelon learned later that he was Drng, chieftain of the tribes subservient to Zelmarine. Ganelon looked at the platter of broken glass and the thick ceramic goblet of bubbling acid from which the little horror imbibed gluttonously, and shuddered: no wonder he was not seated with the other guests!

The feast had obviously been in progress ever since Moonrise, the sacrifice was long since over and two ritually-slain Androsphinxes were impaled on the Moon Altar. Ganelon glanced, then looked away in distaste; he might be only a simple, untutored oaf from the back-alleys of Zermish, but he did not believe that the ceremonial execution of fabulous monsters could avert the doom of the Falling Moon. And, in his opinion, anyone who did was lacking somewhat in intelligence.

He was not particularly hungry, only picked at his food, and drank lightly from the sparkling beverages set before him. There was no point in trying to examine his nutriment for the presence of narcotics; since he was completely in the power of Queen Zelmarine, she could drug him in any number of ways, at any time she wished to. With an elaborate pretence of indifference, he merely toyed with his food.

Dancing-girls, their stark nudity veiled only in that their sinuous bodies had been rubbed with adhesive, then sprinkled with dust-of-gold, undulated in the aisles between the rows of feasters. The thud and whiffle of small drums, the tootle and whine of pipes, came from musicians seated in the shadow of the nearer pillars.

Only one individual was seated on the steps of the dais in greater proximity to Zelmarine than himself. This was a lean, sour-faced personage in tight, narrow robes of eye-blinding indigo, with a silver hat and jangling bracelets which adorned his long bony wrists. His skin was sallow and umber, his large eyes black, fiery and magnetic. He seemed to be staring at Ganelon with an intensity that was almost rude, so Silvermane returned it, stare for stare.

Zelmarine, who had been covertly studying Silvermane’s every expression and movement from behind her thick lashes, noticed this and spoke in her clear, low voice that had almost a growl in it.

“Permit me to make you known, Ganelon Silvermane, to my aide and confidant, Varesco, one of the Mentalists of Ning. He provides me with invaluable assistance in my researches on the human brain, a subject in which the Ningevite savants have attained to a mastery far surpassing my own.”

Ganelon nodded briefly at the blue-robed Mind Worshipper, who returned it with a curt nod of equal brevity, and thereafter devoted his full attentions to his wine-cup.

At the conclusion of the feast, Zelmarine descended to where Ganelon had politely come to his feet, and gave him another of those lush, delighted smiles.

“I trust my servitors are doing all that is within their power to make your stay in our court comfortable,” she said demurely. He bowed, and said quietly that the enforced inactivity wearied him, since he was used to violent exercise.

“If I might be permitted to work-out with your guardsmen, I would be grateful,” he said somberly.

“Certainly!” She turned to a burly-shouldered, deep-chested officer, his red-lacquered leather armor crested and gilt with decorations of rank, who had been seated at the nearest tabouret. He had gotten to his feet, as had all the throng, when she herself had risen from her crystal throne. “Colonel Turmus, will you see to it that our honored guest is given the freedom of the exercise-yard? Under proper escort, of course!”

“It shall be done, my lady,” the officer said, saluting by touching his left shoulder with the palm of his right hand.

“Farewell, then, for the moment,” the Red Queen said to Silvermane. He bowed again and thanked her, whereupon she smiled and sauntered off, hips swaying languidly as she strolled down the aisle between the tables, to vanish from the hall behind the thick velvet draperies which masked a doorway between two pillars.

The throng stood in utter silence while she moved gracefully from the room.

Ganelon was a little surprised to notice that, while from the front she had worn at least a modicum of jewelry, from the back she looked completely naked from the nape of her neck to the heels of her gem-twinkling slippers,

The bronze giant, slightly disconcerted, turned his eyes away from the plump rondure of her perfectly-proportioned buttocks. In so doing, he chanced to look in the direction of the lean Ningevite Mentalist.

Varesco was staring after the Enchantress with avid hunger in his burning eyes. Oblivious to all else but the languid swaying of her nude back and bottom, her long, lithe legs, he watched with fascination glittering in his black, hot eyes, He wet his thin lips a little with a pointed tongue as she strolled out of sight.

Ganelon frowned heavily. The tensions and undercurrents at this weird court were beyond his limited sophistication. How he wished the old Illusionist could be here to advise him on his words and actions!

10. GRRFF THE XOMBOLIAN

Bright and early the next morning Ganelon rose from his sumptuous bed, breakfasted lightly, and under a heavy guard of clanking Automatons, went forth into the exercise-yard of the Red Legion to work out with the local weaponry. For the occasion he had put aside the silken gowns of the wardrobe which Zelmarine had furnished, in favor of his plain, worn war-harness of black leathern straps and the swash-topped boots.

The Red Legion was quartered in long rows of barracks behind the Palace of Red Magic, screened from view by tall, flowering tamerinkus trees. The exercise-yard itself was spacious in the extreme, almost the size of a gladiatorial arena, with stadium seats in a half-circle around it. There was a variety of gear wherewith the warriors of the Legion practiced daily, in preparation for war, invasion, riot or insurrection.

The officer who had been in the forefront of the feast was there to observe the foreign giant as he worked out. This Colonel—“Turmus,” the Red Queen had called him—was stout and aging, with grizzled, close-cropped hair and a ruddy face; his eyes were cold, ice-gray, unfriendly. He nodded imperceptibly in reply to Ganelon’s greeting, wordlessly indicating racks of weaponry and instruments wherewith the visitor presumably might make free—under constant supervision, of course.

Ganelon looked the racks over approvingly. There were swords of every size and description; spears, javelins, pikes, billhooks, hammers and axes, yarmaks and bows, volusks, discus-dags, war-boomerangs, and other examples of weaponry familiar to him from his service in the militia of Zermish. There were also several kinds of war-instruments unfamiliar to him; he selected one of these, a throwing-trident with hollow glass prongs, and hefted its weight curiously, wondering just how it was used.

“Ho, there, friend! You seem unaccustomed to the mer-spike; if so, let Grrff caution you to avoid fracturing the tips of the triple point,” said a husky, rough-edged voice from behind him. He turned to see a powerful Karjixian Tigerman stripped to his barred, tawny fur, clad only in black-leather groincup and high-strapped sandals.

“Thanks for the advice,” said Ganelon. “As a matter of fact, I’ve never seen one of these before: how are they used?”

The Tigerman took it in his paw and upended it. “The Merfolk of the Second Inland Sea use these when hunting sea snakes,” he growled. “The prongs alone are frangible, containing nerve poison; the sea people hurl these like spears at the aquatic reptiles; they break on their scaly backs, injecting venom which causes paralysis. Galendil only knows why the Red Bitch has her soldiers train in their use, unless mayhap she plans to add the Inland Sea to her cursed empire, with all the rest!”

Ganelon pricked up his ears at the expletive. They were some yards away from where Colonel Turmus stood watching with cold, sullen eyes, and the Karjixian had spoken in gruff, low tones which had probably not been overheard.

“I gather you are no friend to Zelmarine?” he inquired quietly. “But weren’t you at the moon-festival last night?”

The Tigerman gave a snarling laugh, and spit into the sawdust, wrinkling up his whiskery snout. “Not Grrff, big man! He shares a cell in the prison wing of the Palace, albeit one slightly less snug and comfy than yours, if rumor is truth for once. If fellow-countrymen o’ Grrff’s were at the feast, the curs were renegades. Outcasts or renegades!”

Ganelon digested this news with considerable interest. It is always to the future benefit of a prisoner to make genial contact with his fellow-captives, it occurred to him. He introduced himself; the Tigerman blinked with surprise.

“The warrior who rallied the troops at Uth and broke the Indigons last year?” he asked. His yellow cat-eyes glowed with pleasure and his furry ears twitched “Well-met, then, big man! I am by name Grrff, a war-chief of the Farrowl clan of Xombol. Grrff led a party up against the blue vermin when they came swarming down out of the north, shortly ere they turned east at the Crystal Mountains to stampede against your town of Zermish. They were mighty fighters, and tough to kill; my hand, warrior!”

Ganelon took the furry paw and squeezed it in friendly fashion. He measured the Tigerman with curious eyes, and liked what he saw. The Xombolian only came to his shoulder, of course, but his mighty torso rippled with bulging thews beneath the short nap of his orange fur, which was striped with black and ivory. He had met Tigermen before, and he generally liked them. He said as much.

“I was in Xombol not long ago, with friends,” he added.

“Oh, aye? How are things there? Poor Grrffs been caged up here since the damnable Indigons crushed his warmen and left him cut off from any chances of homeward retreat. There was nowhere else to go but east, damn the filthy luck, and of course poor Grrff ran into an ambush in Dwarfland and the little monsters sold him into bondage here. What the Red Bitch wants with him is simple treason—knowledge of the guard-posts and troop-disposal about my King’s capitol; and as Grrff will not speak, she pens him here in durance, hoping to break his spirit!”

“King Vrowl? My master is a good friend of his, and we were guests in Xombol palace on the visit I told you of,” said Ganelon. They exchanged a few more words, but then Colonel Turmus, who had been distracted by a messenger, noticed the two captives conversing in low’ tones. He sent a pair of Automatons clanking over to separate them.

Till noon, Ganelon and Grrff the Tigerman exercised in the sun, using weapon after weapon against straw dummies as hacking-posts, but too widely apart for further words. When they left the field, however, they waved a friendly goodbye to each other, and exchanged conspiratorial grins and winks.

In the very stronghold of his enemies, Ganelon Silvermane had found a friend.

Somehow, the future looked a little brighter for that.

Every morning thereafter, Silvermane looked forward to his hours in the exercise-yard. Not only did he enjoy the opportunity to stretch and toughen his muscles, and to increase and develop his skills with the weapons of war, but he anticipated the furtive pleasures of conversation with the Tigerman. Indeed, he and his new-found friend managed to talk a bit, for Turmus was very often absent on his Queen’s business, and the Automatons stationed about the field to guard against his escape were too stupid or too uncaring to keep them apart.

It was from Grrff that he learned something about the ambitions of the Red Enchantress. “She’s a cunning, unscrupulous, intelligent, ruthless female,” growled the Tigerman. “She has notions to incorporate the Realm of the Nine Hegemons and the Voormlsh tribesmen, together with Dwarfland and such city-states about as Oym, Chx, and Abbergathy—to say nothing of Quay, Ixland, the country of the Holy Horxites and GrrfFs own beloved homeland of Karjixia, into one gigantic Empire. With her Redness, of course, as the Empress. She already has gotten a hold on some of the Dwarves, and she has managed to intimidate the Hegemons of Pergamoy, Sabdon and your own town of Zermish; Jargo’s next on the agenda, I fancy.”

“But how does she plan to manage it? She doesn’t have much of an army.”

Grrff shrugged, his nape-fur ruffling at the thought. “Don’t put down the Red Legion till you’ve seen them fight, big man! Anyway, she’s got some of the Dwarf-tribes under her thumb, and you know what ferocious fighters those green devils can be. Then she’s got her scythe-armed Automatons, of course. There must be a thousand of them by now, maybe twice that number. And more a-building every day, in the underground factories. Oh, you didn’t know about the factories? Well, Shai is a pretty place, if you like glass—and if you care for red; I’m sick to death of the color myself, after all these months—but didn’t you notice how many of the pretty buildings are mere facades, with nobody living inside them? What’s on the surface is to fool visiting ambassadors and Outlander spies. Underground, it’s all grimy manufactories, busily turning out the tools of war, and hordes of those metal men that can’t be killed. Thirty a day come rolling off the assembly lines, Grrff hears; but that may be only prison scuttlebutt …”

Ganelon rubbed his jaw reflectively.

“My master, the magician of Nerelon, knows a lot about her and considers her a powerful threat to Northern YamaYamaLand. I wonder if he knows about the underground war works.”

“Nerelon, eh? Grrff’s heard of him—a great friend of King Vrowl and an ally of his royal father, if we’re talking about the same Illusionist. Skinny little geezer, keeps himself covered and gloved, and wears perfumed smoke to hide his face? The same one, then. He was also a good friend to my ancestors, in the previous two or three reigns.”

“Really? Goodness, I didn’t know he was as old as all that; but you can never tell with magicians, can you?”

The Tigerman grinned, revealing strong white fangs set in bright pink gums. “You can’t, and that’s a fact. Grrff can recall one time he had a run-in with a troublesome wizard, up Thazarian mountain country. Fellow just came down one day, riding on a Phlygul. Planned to build his tower and lord it over some of the Karjixian villages down that way. The King dispatched poor Grrff on a punitive expedition, at the head of a thousand warriors, to pound some sense into his skull. Turned out to be a nice old fellow, after all, and willing to listen to reason … a thousand war-axes speak mighty eloquent, I guess … The whole trouble was, the wizard was so old he remembered Karjixia before we Tiger-folk evolved and got ourselves civilized. He thought the whole country was still just wild jungle-land, with nobody to own it! Fellow must have been all of fifty thousand years old! Name of Qesper Volphotex, as I recall. Nice-enough old human, once you talked some sense into him …”

Ganelon nodded absently, not really listening. His brow was furrowed with puzzlement.

“I wonder what she wants with me?” he mused. “Master was never sure about that. I don’t know anything about the defences of the Hegemonic cities; no war-chief, I was only a militiaman. Why do you suppose she has me locked up in such a luxurious cell, inviting me to feasts and all?”

“Grrff doesn’t know, big man,” growled the Tigerman. Then, ominously, he added: “But he’s a hunch you’re going to find out before the world’s much older …”

11. THE SUPERWOMAN SPEAKS

That very night, as it turned out, Ganelon got an inkling of what the Red Queen wanted of him.

He was invited to partake of a private supper in the seclusion of the Queen’s own suite. The apartments of Zelmarine were situated high in the tallest of the elfin spires of ruby glass, to which he was escorted by more of the omnipresent metal men who went clinking and clanking along, looking for all the world like suits of old-fashioned armor with nobody inside them.

The dining-chamber was open to the star-lit night, crystal panes folded back to let the evening breezes float in, rustling the gorgeous draperies and sending the flames a-flickering on tall red tapers. Below, a glittering vista of Shai by starlight spread out like a jewelled carpet, with the grim, ragged masses of the Mountains of the Death Dwarves beyond, blocking off the world to the north.

The Enchantress wore a thin gown, a mere tissue of ebony silk, on this occasion, and her glistening tresses were caught up in a loose net of jacinths. Curled in a nest of cushions, she lazily waved him to a seat beside her. Across from the low crystal table, the Mentalist of Ning sat, sour-eyed and glowering. A casual light repast of sparkling, effervescent wine in fluted goblets, plates of crisp Garongaland salad bedabbled with creamy swickleberry dressing, tidbits of broiled cave-fish swimming in pepper-sauce, lay spread out on the table. Ganelon was invited to help himself.

The conversation was casual, wandering from topic to topic without ever quite coming to rest. The Enchantress found several excuses to touch Ganelon’s arm or wrist lightly, and her warm thigh brushed his under the table whenever she reached for a delicacy.

He sat there, stolidly ignoring the deep cut of her gown and seemingly oblivious to the warm, musky perfume that rose from the cleavage of her full breasts. She spoke in her deep, husky voice, and it sent shivers up his spine. The witchery of starlight glimmered on her thick, dark hair, and a warm glow shone in her large, lovely, slightly tilted eyes. Every word chimed with faintly seductive music; every touch was a caress. Blue-robed Varesco sat hunched across the table, chewing on his thin lip and hating him. Ganelon pretended not to notice the open invitation in Zelmarine’s every word and glance, or the overpowering allure of her presence.

Or was it affectation? Perhaps he was truly oblivious to the pull of this woman, this superwoman, this sorceress who was half a witch and half a goddess. Often, back in Zermish, his mother had speculated over his lack of interest in the nubile street-girls of the neighborhood, who had clustered about him like cats drawn to tempting bait during the years of adolescence. His master had once discussed the problem with Phlesco, Ganelon’s adoptive father, cautioning him not to expect the usual wedding and fatherhood. Ganelon was a Construct, not a True Human. The Time Gods had designed him for some unknown purpose of their own, breeding him in their tissue vats; and perhaps the design had not included the normal masculine glands, emotions, instincts. It was too soon to tell; “born” fully-grown from the Ardelix Vault, Ganelon was about twelve years old, as far as the drives of manhood were concerned.

The Enchantress purred silkenly, her emotions rising at the nearness of the bronze giant. She panted, her superb bosom rising and falling, her blood afire. All of her magnificent womanliness she poured into every sidelong glance of her glorious eyes, into every pout or smile of her lush mouth. The magic of her fleshly loveliness had captured hundreds of men before, many of them only partially human: surely, this oafish bumpkin of a Zermishman was not proof against her charms, where, princes, heroes and Mysteriarchs had succumbed!

The wine she urged on him contained a secret aphrodisiac; the musky perfume she wore was a heady intoxicant blended by an alchemist in her service; the dishes from which he ate were mixed with subtle narcotics designed to arouse the desires of the male.

Through it all, Ganelon sat like a statue of cold, adamantine bronze, noticing nothing, feeling nothing. When Varesco rose at her signal to make his reluctant departure, she flashed him a fiery glance; she knew the gaunt, lust-maddened Mentalist was enslaved by her: why, then, was Ganelon invulnerable to her lure?

As they sat alone together, she began to speak. Her deep, husky voice began to spin a web of enchantment about him. She spoke of the many lands of Northern YamaYama Land, of how they were divided by old traditions, ancient enmities, and long centuries of independence; she told him how they wasted their strength in futile strife, one state against the other, and of how mighty would be their destiny were they to combine in one gigantic alliance. One empire, built of many kingdoms (she purred huskily in his ear) could in time enlist all of the scattered shreds and scraps of dwindling True Humanity under one imperial banner, to master the destiny of Gondwane itself. Should not the Last Age be one of ultimate and immortal glory for humanity? Should not the terminal remnants of mankind stand together in one last, titanic empire, to startle and amaze the world in the Twilight of Time?

Snuggling closer to him on the silken divan, she argued that it would take a superhuman combination of will, intellect and daring to create such a magnificent achievement. Such a being as, she averred, for instance—herself. Although not a True Human, she nurtured vast, illimitable respect and admiration for the deeds of earlier times and former civilizations; unlike so many Quasi-humans, she was a devout Hu-manophile, and yearned to guide the Last Men in one final, glorious enterprise which could fittingly stand as the ultimate culmination of human history …

But, although her powers were great, her ambition and sense of dedication splendid, she was, alas, only mortal. Such empires, constructed by a single genius, tend to swiftly erode upon their leader’s demise, crumbling from internal strains and stresses. The only way such an empire could be built to last for ages, perhaps even unto the end of the world, was through the establishment of a dynasty. Zelmarine must, therefore, seek out a male whose strength, greatness and courage were as superhuman as her own. Casting him many a meaningful sidewise glance, she bemoaned the lack of supermen in this decadent age. Should such a super-mortal appear, she vowed, her lush bosom rising and falling with the tumult of her emotions, he could take her by storm: she would yield everything to his ardent assault. And that included her superb body and her unrivalled capacities for carnal pleasure …

Ganelon nodded noncommittally and asked if he could pour her more wine. He sipped the drink moodily, as if unaware that the wine was heavily laced with a potent aphrodisiac. She eyed him furiously, chewing on her lower lip. He seemed as unaware that her heaving breasts were only inches from his hand, her panting lips only a reach away, as if they were separated by continents, conversing by televisor.

The intimate supper came to its inconclusive end. Automatons escorted Silvermane back to his sumptuous cell. Varesco reentered the suite at her summons, gloating with his hot eyes, a smirk faintly visible on his thin, starved mouth. She released a tempest of tears, striding up and down the room smashing furniture with blows of her powerful fists, shattering vases in her fury.

Barely able to conceal his delight at the indifference which his rival displayed towards the alluring charms of the Enchantress, Varesco strove to discredit him yet further in the eyes of the humiliated Queen of Red Magic.

“Perhaps the fleshly lusts of the champion lie in … ah … more epicene directions?” he purred. She bathed him in a furious glare; then her glorious eyes were veiled in silken lashes as she pondered the possibility. Although remote, it was of course conceivable. It would at least relieve her humiliation, were it to be demonstrated that Ganelon Silvermane scorned not her, but her entire gender, favoring more effete partners.

“Test his vulnerabilities therein,” she commanded brusquely, before sweeping from the room. Varesco bowed and smiled covertly as she receded from him. Thereafter, the servitors who brought Ganelon’s meals were slender youths with fawn-like eyes, full-lipped pouting mouths, sleek thighs and tender buttocks. Although they presented themselves before him in every variety of dress from feminine garments, lace lingerie, leather suits to even weirder forms of apparel—as well as complete nudity—the Construct paid them little attention. He never so much as ventured a caress, although the parade of beautiful boys made it obvious that they were amenable to his pleasures, and were at his disposal, whatever form it might take. In desperation, Zelmarine exposed Silvermane to old men and women, animals, prepubescent children of all four sexes, and every conceivable kind of Subhuman, Quasi-human, and Nonhuman, including, of course, the Pseudo-women of Chuu. Although actually a form of vegetable life, these Pseudo-women were complete duplicates of human females in all capacities save that of reproduction*; they had been bred to incredible seductive beauty through ages of scientific horticulture. To one and all, Silvermane remained aloof and unresponsive.

* They reproduced their kind through bud or graft instead of birth. It will be recalled that Ganelon’s own foster-mother, Iminix, was of their kind.

The private dinner proved to be but the first of many such, during which the Enchantress presented herself before Silvermane in a bewildering variety of raiment, each gown more ravishingly beautiful and more revealing than the one before. The beverages served to the Construct contained half the narcotics and aphrodisiacs in the pharmacopoeia. The final supper of the sequence saw Zelmarine clothed in naught but a dusting of powdered emeralds, and the wine heady with sufficient aphrodisiacs to madden with lust the denizens of an entire monastery.

Ganelon remained celibate and disinterested to the end. But Zelmarine had not yet given up and felt confident she could wear him down with time.

12. ISTROBIAN’S FLYING KAYAK

While the Red Queen strives to seduce Ganelon Silvermane with her wiles and blandishments, let us return to Chx and learn how the Illusionist, Xarda, and Prince Erigon have fared in the meanwhile.

Finding the Bazonga bird gone, as they did during their quick visit to the Hospice of the Eleven Cardinal Virtues, after making their midnight escape from the Administratium, put a severe crimp in their plans. It makes it more difficult, escaping on foot than by air. For one thing, you can put many leagues between you and your eventual pursuers when you fly. Afoot, however, is quite another matter.

“Surely, magister, the Chxians will not awaken from their nocturnal fit of criminality to discover our escape before dawn,” argued the Sirix of Jemmerdy. “By then, in sooth, we shall be far away from Chx.”

“Yes; but not as far as I could wish,” grumbled the old magician testily. “Whatever could have possessed that pesky Bird to break her tether and fly off on her own? It just isn’t like her to be so thoughtless and uncaring …”

The Prince of Valardus had been staring uncomprehendingly from one to the. other as they talked. He did not, of course, understand to whom they were referring, since Ganelon Silvermane was the only missing member of then-company, insofar as he knew.

He cleared his throat tentatively.

“Ahem! Is it, ah, a mode of transport you discuss?” he inquired. Nodding brusquely, the Illusionist curtly described the brazen animated vehicle which had been both their steed and their companion on previous adventures. The puzzlement cleared from the Prince’s handsome features.

“Ah!” he exclaimed. “An aerial device, then. In that case, pray permit me to offer you the services of my aerial kayak.”

“An aerial kayak?” asked the Illusionist, surprised. “How fortunate! But how do you come to be in possession of the craft, which is, unless I am mistaken, an invention of Istrobian, the celebrated sorcerer of an earlier epoch?”

“It is indeed Istrobian’s flying kayak to which I refer,” said Erigon smilingly. “My late mother was a distant descendent of his, and it has long been in the possession of her family, passing thus by simple inheritance to me. As the celestial vessel travels more swiftly than could any mode of land transport, whether on ornith or nguamodon, I selected the vessel from the treasure-vault of Valardus palace, employing it to travel swiftly and in comparative comfort to the nearby realms.”

“But where is the miraculous vehicle now? Surely, the Ethical Triumvirs have purloined it—” began Xarda, but the young Prince cut off her flow of words with a lifted palm.

“It is here, in the very Hospice in whose courtyard we now stand,” he smiled. “I parked it in the stables, securely tethered against any possibility of theft by use of a sentient rope. Having paid the Innkeeper a cube of virgin copper for rental of the stable stall, and since, during the daylight hours, the Chxians are scrupulously honest, it is no doubt still tethered within.”

“But at night—” began Xarda.

“At night, m’lady, the criminal Chxians have more notable malefactions to commit than theft of a stabled steed! Come, let us investigate.”

He led them to the long row of stables. Within lay damp coolness, the odors of mouldy straw, the not-unpleasant muskiness of ornith turds and nguamodon droppings—and the kayak!

It was a four-seater, built like a long, slim canoe, with a blade-thin point at either terminus. The seats were all in a row down the mid-section of the craft, one after the other like peas in a pod; and, kayak-like, the bright blue fabric which was stretched tightly over the light frame of the craft could be laced snugly about the waist of the passengers. About thirty feet from stem to stem, the craft hovered four or five feet above the straw-strewn packed earth which floored the stable. It was held tightly by a glassy, odd-looking rope which resembled a fat, lucent worm.

“What holds it up?” asked the Illusionist, entranced with delight. “Our own Bazonga is impregnated with yxium crystals, which resist gravity—”

“Nothing so complicated,” said Erigon, shaking his head. ” ‘Tis said that the sorcerer Istrobian wrought the framework of the craft from the metal found in a fallen star, but the savants of Valardus pooh-pooh this as mere mythography, arguing that the thing which fell was a fragment of the Moon itself—”

“A meteorite?”

“If you wish to call it that,” said the Prince in his friendly, unargumentative manner. “At any rate, the metal yearns for its lunar home—”

“Ah, of course!” said the Illusionist with satisfaction. “A well-known property of dianium*—but pray continue your intriguing discourse, Prince.”

* Again I must refer the interested reader to the Glossary at the end of the book. I simply cannot impede the headlong pace of my narrative with lengthy explanations of each unfamiliar term.

“Thank you. As I was saying, the metal yearns for its lunar home, and seeks ever to return thence … the gravity of Old Earth, however, proves stronger than the pull of homesickness. It renders it somewhat more than weightless. The metal of the ribs is ferrous, hence magnetic, and the kayak is believed to ride the magnetic lines of force about our planet.”

“Subtle and ingenious,” marvelled the old magician. “That Istrobian was a wonder-worker, in sooth! ‘Tis far simpler than our beloved Bird …”

“But why the blue fabric?” asked Xarda.

“Oiled and enamelled, it keeps off the rain and the night-damps,” explained Prince Erigon, “which would cause the moon-metal to rust, in tune consuming the vessel utterly. Let me untie the craft and we can be off before any roving band of crazed and criminal Chxians chances upon us.”

Murmurring low cooing sounds like a half-strangled dove, he approached the thick glassy rope which bound the floating kayak to the beams which upheld the stable roof. One end of the sentient rope lifted warningly at his approach, swaying from side to side like a cobra. But the tether seemed to recognize its master’s tone, or perhaps his touch, and soon relaxed as he stroked and patted it. At his signal they clambered with some difficulty into the bucket-like seats, the kayak straining skyward all the while. Erigon himself was the last to spring lightly aboard the craft, bearing with him the coil of sentient rope which had wound itself about his upper chest and shoulders like a friendly tame boa constrictor.

Foot-pedals controlled the aerial craft. Manipulating them, Erigon eased the floating craft out into the courtyard under the blazing stars. They were unobserved. From the street beyond came happy cries, drunken singing and the jingle of shattering glass. The Chxians were busily in pursuit of their nocturnal pleasures.

Instructing them in the mode by which the kayak fabric could be drawn snugly about their waists and secured, the Prince sent the kayak arrowing skywards. Rooftops swung below the kayak’s keel; towers and spires of scarlet stone whizzed by; soon the mad city of Chx fell behind, swallowed in night’s gloom, save for the ruddy glow of several burning buildings.

“Whither now, magister?” asked Erigon, cupping his hands around his mouth and shouting the question.

The Illusionist shouted back that he had no idea where Ganelon might have gone, once he had managed to escape from the Administratium.

“What about your Third Eye, prithee?” sang the clear soprano of the girl knight above the wind, which snatched her words away. The Illusionist peered about, then shrugged.

“From this height I should be able to detect his Auric pattern, were he anywhere in this city. Evidently, he is not.”

“I can’t understand why the big lug would just go off and leave us in jail,” sang Xarda with some asperity. “He may be stupid, but he was always loyal!”

“Perhaps he had no voice in the matter,” replied the Illusionist, whose agile wits had perceived something like the truth in the fact that the Bazonga and Silvermane were both inexplicably absent. He knew the ungainly and absurdly motherly Bird was devoted to the simple youth.

“Well, where would he have most likely gone, had he been able to choose?” asked Prince Erigon. Xarda shrugged angrily: “Over the border, I guess, towards Jemmerdy. That was where we were all heading.”

“Yes, but does Ganelon know in which direction Jemmerdy lies?” inquired the Illusionist. “The dear boy is not the brightest creature that ever trod Old Earth, you know!”

“Well, please, someone make up their mind. Tell me in which direction to fly,” begged the Prince of Valardus.

“Oh, very well! Just fly in an ever-widening circle, with Chx in the middle, until I am able to spy Ganelon’s aura on the Astral plane,” said the Illusionist, despairing of a better plan.

They flew in a lazy spiral, gradually drawing further and further away from the Scarlet City. An interminable vista of farmlands and woods, plains and fields swung beneath them under the glittering stars and the awful cyclopean glare of the Falling Moon.

The Illusionist sat in the foremost of the bucket-like seats of the kayak, the cowl of his robe drawn up until it covered his face, the better to employ his powers of vision on the Astral.

Around and around they swung, until then* spiral had widened to a width of many miles, with the walled city of Chx a clutter of miniature houses far off. No sign of Ganelon Silvermane could be perceived. The Illusionist said nothing, but inwardly he wondered how Ganelon could have come so far, unless he had indeed been mounted on the Bazonga bird. If such proved not to be the case, was it possible that the heroic Construct was dead? At death, the Astral counterpart of the physical body departs for a higher plane of being, to rejoin the Soul, the Spirit and the Zaliph. This is the innermost soul-of-souls, usually resident on the Akashic plane. From the viewpoint of the Akashic, time past, present and future is seen as one continuous palimpsest, he knew. He could not believe that Ganelon Silvermane had been slain. However, every hour their flight continued in an ever-widening circle, it became less likely that the mighty youth could have come so far unaided.

Suddenly, Xarda uttered a stifled shriek. Erigon. voiced a startled cry and paddled frantically, as if striving to avert a collision. The magister, whose physical eyes were muffled to insure his higher vision a clearer, un-confused vista, snatched back his cowl and blinked into the wind.

Directly ahead, swinging towards them, an immense flying monster loomed with spread wings black against the argent immensity of the Falling Moon.

13. THE OMEGA TRISKELION

Very early the following morning, Silvermane, accompanied by his escort of metal men, went out on the exercise field and worked himself into a sweat with the pornoi, the yarmak and the war-hammer. He still felt just a trifle sleepy from the narcotics in his wine at dinner the night before, and it was a pleasure to practice with the weapons, stripped to a loincloth, under the cool red rays of the aging sun.

Grrff the Tigerman had been working out at the opposite side of the field, practicing with sting-sword, dart-thrower and the traditionally Tigermanic weapon, the ygdraxel. Silvermane had never seen the ygdraxel used before, and studied the Xombolian’s technique with claw-tipped, tridentiform billhook appraisingly.

They met, after an hour or so, at the water-butt. Between deep draughts they managed to exchange a few surreptitious morsels of conversation, even though they were under the alert, suspicious eye of Turmus. The Colonel stood near the bleachers, himself conversing with Drng, chief of Zelmarine’s Death Dwarves, careful to keep upwind of the bowlegged green monster. He had been imbibing rather heavily of mixed cobra-venom and hydrochloric-acid cocktails the night before, and his breath had to be smelled to be believed.

“Prison scuttlebutt has it the Red Bitch is trying to seduce you; any truth to the rumor?” growled Grrff in low tones, while ostensibly guzzling at the water-pail. Ganelon, who was not too certain what “seduce” meant, made a noncommittal reply. The Tigerman shrugged, took another gulp from the pail, put it down, and began to preen his muzzle and chest-fluff. “None of GrrfFs business, eh? Well, maybe so: but you’d better watch your step, big man. Varesco, who nurses a jealous and frustrated passion for the minx, has his eyes on you, and would slay you if he dared. Which he does not. Zelmarine wants to breed a race of supermen wherewith to dominate the world, and needs your,”—he chuckled—“services to that end. She’d skin the old Mind Worshipper alive if she caught him trying to slip some poison into your wine. Keep your eyes^ peeled when you’re alone with Varesco: he knows every sneaky method of assassination and has a hundred ways to kill without leaving clues. The only reason he hasn’t put you under the sod already is that he would be the first suspect on the Witch’s list if you suddenly turned up your toes and went to Galendil.”

Ganelon digested this thoughtfully, while dousing his steaming, naked torso with cold water. “What can we do to escape from this place?” he asked. The cat-yellow eyes of the Tigerman flashed with excited fires. “Now you’re talking! Old Grrff has a few ideas along that line—have you ever heard of the so-called ‘Cavern of a Thousand Perils’?”

Ganelon nodded somberly. “I’ve heard Zelmarine is the last of the Red Amazons, and came hither from Thoph by means of this Cavern. But I don’t really understand just what it’s supposed to be …”

Grrff snorted, blowing water-drops from his whiskers. In his snarling, growly voice he explained: ” ‘Tis a hyperspatial tube, Grrff’s heard, a veritable labyrinth of ‘em; connecting different parts o’ Gondwane together with other worlds, planes and strata of existence. These hyperspatial tubes collapse space in upon itself; inside one of ‘em, a step can take you a hundred leagues, or a thousand, or a quintillion, if you’re not careful. Tricksey things, hyperspatial tubes. Nobody knows who built the system, or when, nor even why. Some say the Tensors o’ Pluron, others the Fabricators of Dirdanx or the Dional Moralists, or the High Advo-cats o’ Tring or the Ptelian Dynasts, or the Technarchs of Grand Phesion. They’ve been around since the Age of the Glaspenfells, at least, if not since the Eon of the Blind Philosophers.”

Warming to his subject, or perhaps enjoying the chance to display his erudition, the furry Tigerman expanded on the subject. “Some say ‘twere the Zealots o’ the Black Enigma bent space to make the labyrinth, others say the Mnermite Dissenters, the Nexial Para-phrasts, the Monadic Centralists or the Mysteriarchs of Pesh. At any rate, ol’ Grrff, who keeps his ears open and is ever wary, understands the Shai terminus is located somewhere beneath the palace, marked with an Omega Triskelion—”

A sluggish, grating voice spoke suddenly behind them. “Why, you, talk, humans? Go, work, weapons.” It sounded like gritty pieces of carborundum being rubbed together in an echo chamber. They turned to see the green dwarfling, Drng, staring at them with dull, suspicious eyes like blood-blisters.

Ganelon did not have a chance, due to Drag’s untimely interruption, to ask what an Omega Triskelion was, or why the hyperspatial labyrinth was called “the Cavern of a Thousand Perils”. As for the latter question, he thought he could figure it out by himself; it stood to reason that, in a region where a single inaccurate step could carry you across the breadth of Gondwane or to the unknown surface of another planet, the descriptive term “Thousand Perils” might be, if anything, an understatement.

The Omega Triskelion, though, was quite another matter. That afternoon, following a light repast of hot muffins fried in glick butter and daubed with dingle-berry marmalade, with fricassee of mermaid in calandre sauce, washed down with crystal tumblers of effervescent wine the color of starshine, he sought out the librarium in the Palace of Red Magic. The Enchantress had given him library privileges at his request, to alleviate the boredom of captivity with some light reading. Never much of a reader, the moody giant had browsed through a few odd volumes during the past couple of days.

Now he asked of the librarian, an Automaton whose sentience was attuned to the catalog storage brain, for a volume on signs and symbols. Retiring to an alcove overlooking the Rainbow Fountains, he leafed through Saliche’s Symbolic Imagery until he found a representation of the sign Grrff had mentioned. It resembled a three-armed swastika composed of open loops with serifs on them. According to Saliche, the curious sign had symbolized open-end infinitism, recorded by the Blind Philosophers of Tring during the Ninth Pastoral Age.* Memorizing the design of the Omega Triskelion, he closed the book and returned it to the metal man.

* Although why Blind Philosophers should use a visual symbol is as much beyond me as it was beyond the redactor of this second book of the Epic, who interpolates a mystified footnote at this same point in the text.

That evening before moonrise a servant brought to him an invitation to attend Queen Zelmarine at another of those interminable intimate suppers of hers which he found so boring and uncomfortable. The servant also brought him a note from Grrff, which the Tigerman had bribed him to give Silvermane.

In his continuing attempt to figure out Ganelon’s sexuality, if any, Varesco had gone back to trying boys to tempt him. This was fortunate, because Grrff could hardly have bribed one of the clanking, empty-headed Automatons.

This particular boy was a languid, lissom lad of twelve or thirteen, as slim, graceful and pretty as a girl. Long blond curls tumbled over his slender shoulders, and he had enormous limpid blue eyes with thick sooty lashes and a soft, pouting mouth. Outside of an abbreviated loincloth of lilac silk, he was naked. Rather nervously, he slipped Ganelon the note from the Xombolian Tigerman. At the same tune, he gave him the perfumed invitation from the Red Queen.

His palms had been sweating from sheer anxiety and the ink wherewith Grrff had scrawled the note was smeared, but since the boy wore nothing except the skimpy loincloth and a bit of rouge on a few erogenous zones, there was nowhere else he could have concealed the note on his person. Ganelon dismissed the child with a somber nod and waited until he had exited before opening Grrff’s note. It read as follows:

What ho, big man! Prison scuttlebutt says unless you serve the Red Bitch as stud, she’ll turn you over to the Ningevite for a Mind Probe. He’ll wipe your memory clean and indite a new one, which says you are madly in love with Her Witchery: so watch your step! GRRFF. P.S. The cub bringing you Grrff s note is not as nancy as he looks, runs errands for us sometimes, and can be trusted. His name is Phadia. Keep your whiskers clean! G.

Ganelon palmed the note and read it while pretending to examine the invitation from the Queen. Then he crushed it in his hand and calmly ate it while munching on a ripe vrique-fruit from the Queen’s submarine gardens. He wondered what to do. From what little he knew of Mind Probes, he didn’t think he would have any chance of resisting the vindictive Ningevite.

Escape, then, was the only alternative. Ganelon felt embarrassed at the very notion of yielding to the seduction of the Enchantress. He thought her a very pretty lady, in a slightly overpowering way, but when it came to amatory activity he was completely innocent. It was a matter of actually not knowing just what to do, and with what and where. (For a country boy he was remarkably innocent, but his foster-parents had been artisans, not farmers. He never had the opportunity to learn about It from watching the animals.)

Escape, then: but to where, and how? Shai was an island of civilization surrounded by harsh, tindery plains and mountains infested by hordes of Death Dwarves. Overland travel would be hard and hazardous, if not suicidal. He thought of what Grrff had said about the hyperspatial labyrinth called the “Cavern of a Thousand Perils.”

On sudden impulse, he touched the gong that summoned the Automatons who guarded him. When the metal man came clanking in, Ganelon gruffly asked for the boy who had just brought him the Queen’s invitation. A few moments later the lad entered and came swaying toward him, a tentative smile on his girlish features.

“You want me, lord?” the boy inquired in a husky soprano.

Ganelon cleared his throat with embarrassment and beckoned the boy nearer to him so they could talk without being overheard.

“Grrff the Tigerman says you can be trusted. Your name is Phadia, isn’t it?” The boy nodded, awaiting his pleasure.

“Are we being watched, Phadia?*’

The lad shrugged gracefully, blond curls tumbling over his shin bare shoulders. “I think so, lord. The Lord Varesco is trying to—”

“I know what the Lord Varesco is trying to find out,” Ganelon grunted uncomfortably. “And I’m really not ‘interested in … well, you know.”

The boy pouted, then grinned impishly. “Then what do you want with me, lord?”

“Information.”

“All right, we’ll just talk. But, lord, there may be eyes watching us … The Lord Varesco will become suspicious if we just talk … ‘*

“Umm. I guess you’re right. Any ideas?”

The lad stretched lazily like a cat, his every movement supple and suggestive. “I’m trained as a dancer, lord. I could dance for you, but stay close enough so we may converse without seeming to do so …”

Ganelon nodded, blushing at the picture he would make. The boy laughed at him silently, eyes sparkling with mischief. Slim hips swaying, he went over to a group of hollow crystal wind-chimes hanging in clusters from a mobile and touched them into motion. To the faint chiming music, he began a graceful improvization on an old folkdance of his homeland.

Pretending a rapt fascination, Ganelon watched the slender, swaying figure attentively, blushing furiously all the while. Long bare legs gliding across the carpet, the boy Phadia floated nearer, casting him provocative glances, yet tantalizingly remaining just beyond his reach. If any eyes watched them from a secret spy-hole, they saw more-or-less the sort of thing they would expect to see. They began conversing in low tones, stealthy whisperings.

Ganelon asked the lad if he could move freely about the palace, to which the boy said yes. “Do you know of a room or doorway in the nether regions of the Palace, marked with an Omega Triskelion?”

“I don’t know what that is, lord.” Ganelon described the symbol. Swaying on his long, supple legs, bare arms undulating to the faint music of the wind-chimes, the boy said he knew of such a portal located in the very bowels of the palace, beneath the wine-cellars.

“But no one can enter, lord: twelve of the metal men guard it night and day.”

Pretending that his attention was riveted on the slim, naked boy who danced gracefully before his couch, Ganelon thought swiftly.

“Do you happen to know how the Enchantress controls the metal men?” he asked on an impulse.

The boy cast him a long, sly, coquettish look. Then:

“Yes, I do. Slaves see and hear everything, and nobody ever notices they are around,” the boy whispered. Ganelon’s pulses jumped.

“How does she turn them off? Tell me?”

The boy drifted nearer. “Only if you promise to take me with you when you escape,” the lad whispered.

Ganelon blinked: the child was more clever and quick-thinking than he had guessed. Then he nodded. The boy’s eyes shone and he smiled breathlessly.

Then he floated nearer and whispered three words into the ear of Ganelon Silvermane.

14. THE BOY PHADIA

While her Automatons laid out a cold buffet supper and her maids attired her for the nightly attempt to arouse Ganelon, Zelmarine was attended by Varesco of Ning.

“Have you anything to report, Varesco, or have you come merely to feast your eyes upon that which is unobtainable?” she asked with sweet cruelty. Averting his eyes from her ripe flesh hastily, the gaunt man flushed a dirty yellow and bowed without speaking.

“Very well, then get on with it.”

“Complete failure down the entire spectrum of conceivable perversions,” said Varesco in clipped metallic tones. “Save for this evening, when I went back to using boys. Ganelon Silvermane paid scant attention to the youth in question, but then sent for him again, and—”

“And?” demanded the Red Queen between stiff lips.

“Nothing much,” admitted the Ningevite. “He exchanged a few words with the boy, then apparently asked him to dance for him. The boy danced before him for a time, but the Zermishman made no further advances, merely watching attentively. The boy left, shortly thereafter.”

“Did you observe the incident personally?”

“No-o-o,” said Varesco reluctantly. The Enchantress glared at him, with brilliant eyes flashing.

“A pity,” she said fiercely. “A mental linkage made at that moment, and you could have read the emotional reaction passing through his consciousness, could you not?”

He nodded without speaking.

“Well, what variety of boy was it he asked for?” she inquired. The question was casual, but her jealousy was perfectly obvious in her heaving bosom and glittering eyes. Varesco described the lad.

“White skin, blond hair, long legs, rouge on—”

“Had Ganelon ever seen him before?”

“I doubt it; the child generally serves the prisoners in the main dungeons their luncheon. I instructed that he attend Ganelon Silvermane because he is about thirteen and girlishly pretty. I had previously exposed the Zermishman to boys in the seventeen to twenty-year-old range, with no response whatsoever. Possibly, he prefers them in their early teens—”

“You interrogated the boy, of course?”

“Not I, but my aide, Quang. He questioned the child immediately after Silvermane dismissed him. He said that Silvermane asked his name, age, homeland; learning him to be of Gorombe stock, he asked the boy to perform the traditional ‘Moonwillow Leaves’ for him. The boy danced with seductive grace; Silvermane watched him attentively, the boy reports, corroborating Quang’s own observances, then he bade him leave before the lad could essay a tentative caress.”

The Red Enchantress watched her reflection in the huge mirror with cold, hard, cruel eyes while dusky maids dressed her long, darkly-crimson tresses into an elaborate coiffure.

“And what do you deduce from this, Ningevite?” she demanded at length.

Measuring his words carefully, the gaunt man in the narrow tight robes of blinding blue said: “The native dance of that name is performed by Gorombe virgins, just before the mating rituals. Perhaps Ganelon Silvermane as a boy entertained affection for some lad from Gorombe. Brief, unphysical infatuations are typical behavior during adolescence and normal enough,” he said with clinical detachment.

“Why this particular boy, I wonder?” mused the Enchantress. “The age factor alone? The color of hair, eyes—?”

“If I might subject the Zermishman to a Mind Probe—”

She said nothing: the subject was one on which they had often had discussions. He adroitly changed the subject.

“—If my hypothesis is correct,” he said smoothly, “perhaps this particular boy reminded the Zermishman of some dear little companion of his youth. The experiment, while inconclusive, at least shows more promise than the others.” His allusion, of course, was to the parade of men, women, girls, boys and animals which Ganelon had seen in an attempt to find out where his interests lay.

“Have this particular slave attend Ganelon as his servitor from now on,” the Red Queen commanded. “Repetition may either dispel the attraction the boy seems to have for him, or lead to something more concrete.”

“I hearken and will obey,” said Varesco. Then, slyly: “I remain prepared to conduct a depth probe and erasure of the memory centers at your command. I suggest an artificial memory—”

“Useless, you fool, if Ganelon is interested in young boys!” Zelmarine snapped. “Such a diversion of the mating urges lie deep in the instinct-centers, of the mind, too deep for you to safely attempt corrective surgery! If necessary, my physicians will extract his spermatozoa and fertilize my ova by artificial insemination. I shall then have his body destroyed!”

The bite of vindictiveness was clear in her deep voice. The Ningevite Mentalist smirked inwardly: artificial insemination, whereby the male fertilizes the female by simple surgical techniques, would have been far easier than this elaborately drawn-out attempt at seduction. But the towering feminine ego of the Queen made it imperative that she succeed in the conquest of her aloof, disinterested superman. She would either conquer Silvermane, or kill him!

Varesco eyed her naked back with hopeless eyes. Whatever happened, his love was futile …

After his brief questioning by Varesco’s chief spy, the boy Phadia made his way swiftly into the Pueratorium, a huge, barracks-like room he shared with some fifty boys, and entered his own private cubicle. Sponging off his body-rouge and slipping out of his loincloth, he slid on a pair of white panties and pulled a light tunic of lavender silk on over his head. The tunic was so short that it barely covered his upper thighs, but it was the best he had. He had long ago sewn a pocket unobtrusively into the lining of it. Now, he secreted some of his best jewelry and a few favorite cosmetics into this hidden pocket and slid his bare feet into gilt slippers.

He did this while keeping his face expressionless, trying not to attract the attention of the other boys who were a catty lot and loved spreading gossip and carrying tales. His heart was pounding with excitement within his breast. The very thought of escaping from this dreary place after all these years was intoxicating. Then he took one last look around the little cubicle which had been his home for so long, to see if he had left anything behind.

All around him, boys between ten and sixteen napped, played games, read, sunbathed, or cuddled with favorite toys, pets or little playmates. Few of them were friends of his, and there were only one or two whom he would particularly miss. On the whole, they were a spoiled, spiteful, effeminate lot and he was weary of them.

He left the huge open room (perhaps for the very last time!) with no regrets or good-byes. Taking seldom-used side-corridors and back-stairs, the lad made his way quickly, unobtrusively to the prison-yard, where captives less coddled than Ganelon Silvermane were sequestered. The few Red Magic sentinels he encountered along the way let him pass without question: the pert, girlishly pretty, good-natured boy was a favorite of theirs. He had long ago established a friendly, first-name relationship with most of them.

The guards stationed at the entrance to the prison-yard also thought nothing of his presence here. They were accustomed to seeing him come and go. Responding to their friendly, flirtatious sally with a coquettish jest, the lad slipped within and soon found Grrff in a sunny corner, playing a half-hearted game of dice with a couple of bored Ixlanders. The big furry fellow looked up with a happy grin as Phadia glided over to him.

“Hah, my pretty cub! Did you—hrmph—do the favor ol’ Grrff asked of you?” the Tigerman inquired, with a friendly slap on the lad’s bottom. The boy nodded brightly and came near so they could speak confidentially. At GrrfFs meaningful glare, the two gloomy Ixlanders hastily went off to continue the game elsewhere.

“The Lord Ganelon asked me where the entrance to the Cavern is,” lisped Phadia in his husky soprano. As the Tigerman pricked up his furry, pointed ears, the lad went on to describe the whereabouts of the portal which led into the hyperspatial labyrinth, and to detail Silvermane’s rough plan of escape.

“Ho! Good news, for sure,” huffed the Karjixian happily. “But when’s the day?”

“I don’t really know, sir,” the boy lisped. “Soon, though. Maybe it will even be today.” Then, dropping his thick lashes shyly, the boy whispered softly: “I am to go along, too! He promised.”

“Did he now?” rumbled the burly feline amiably. “Well, it pleases o’ Grrff to hear o’ that! You don’t belong cooped up in here; you’ve good stuff in you, cub. Better things than paint and perfume, lace and love-notes! Poor lad, it’s not your fault, Grrff knows. This is all you’ve ever known …”

The boy smiled tremulously and rose to his feet, bidding the Grrff goodbye. The other grinned, wrinkling up his muzzle, yellow eyes beaming, and gave the lad an affectionate pat on his silk-clad posterior. “Get along with you now, cub; but mind you, keep poor Grrff informed of what’s happening!”

The slender boy nodded breathlessly, waved goodbye, and left the prison-yard with a light heart.

On his way from the prison-yard, Phadia ran into a Red Magic legionnaire who was a particular friend of his, a handsome young soldier named Phlay who was fond of little boys and sometimes did small favors for tine attractive lad.

“Ah, there, my pretty pet!” the soldier grinned, giving the boy an affectionate pinch. “What’s this I hear—your favors are reserved henceforward for the big Zermishman, on orders of the Queen? ‘Twill mean heart-break for all your other admirers, I know!”

The boy smiled back. “I’ll not neglect my very special friends like you, sergeant,” he promised with a provocative flutter of long silken lashes.

“See that you don’t,” said the other, with a joking pretence of severity. “Anyhow, something tells me your friends will not long languish without their pretty Phadia!”

There was significance to his words. And something went through the boy’s slim graceful form, like ice-cold lightning. He shivered slightly.

“What do you mean, sergeant?”

“I mean the Zermish giant had another of his tete-a-tete private suppers with the Queen. He resisted her invitation to more intimate pleasures, which stung her into such a fury that she stunned him with a spell and turned him over to that sly dog, Varesco, on the spot.”

The boy swallowed, hardly able to breathe.

“Aye, the big fellow’s under the Mind Probe right now, I’ll warrant,” grinned Phlay. Tousling the lad’s blond curls with rough affection, he chucked him under the chin with a fingertip. Then he strolled off about his business, leaving Phadia pale and stiff with horror.