Tower Of The Medusa

9. MIND DUEL

“I ask you once again, slave—what are you doing in my quarters?”

The menace in Pangoy’s voice was sharp and cold, like a keen dagger-blade.

Caola turned, wishing she had brought some manner of weapon. Fear rose within her. She knew the dire things of which the vile Nexian was capable, and she knew that the life of a slave-girl was of no consequence on Zangrimar, under the tyrannical reign of the Witch Queen.

“Lord, I—I—” she stammered, her mind racing furiously.

“You what? You came here to spy, is that it?”

“No! I came only to…”

He sprang forward and seized her wrist, twisting it in a merciless grip.

“Speak, girl, or I will break your arm,” Pangoy hissed, exerting subtle pressure. “Whom are you spying for? What faction? Is it Kynarion, or Loigar, or Iosophus, or—the Queen? Speak, you little fool!”

Sobbing with pain, Caola writhed in the Nexian’s terrible grip. Her arm blazed with agony. Needles of intolerable fire lanced through her muscles.

“Please, Lord Pangoy! I spy for no one. I am here by accident—a wrong turning of the corridor—” He smiled mirthlessly.

“You lie, girl. My chambers are clearly marked. You would have to be blind to enter here by error. And the door is sealed by magic, it opens only to the touch of the signet ring I wear. Speak the truth now, or I’ll—”

He increased the pressure and Caola screamed.

It was this shrill cry that woke Kirin from his slumbers. He opened bleared eyes to see the girl struggling in the clutches of Pangoy. Although every movement cost him pain, he fought against the straps that held him.

“Caola! Let her go, you torturing fiend!”

Pangoy cast a look of astonishment at the man he had thought incapacitated for hours. Then he smiled and hurled the whimpering girl against the wall with one powerful shove.

“So, we have awakened from our little swoon, eh? How nice!” he chuckled, striding towards the table whereon Kirin writhed helplessly.

“Don’t touch her again, you pig, or I’ll break both of your arms,” Kirin growled.

Pangoy smiled again.

“So that’s it! You have a friend within the palace, eh? This girl did not enter my quarters by accident, but to discover where you were hidden… I see! A conspiracy. How many others are in this, girl? Speak up!”

He turned away from the bound Earthling to confront the slave-girl who had staggered to her feet. One hand went to his waist where the glittering metal coil of a neuronic whip dangled.

Caola sucked in her breath when she saw it. She had seen slaves in agony under the neuronic whip before and she knew the incredible agony the touch of the electric lash caused. The metal of the whip was charged with electric force keyed to the vibrations of the human nervous system. A single touch brought a burst of unendurable agony searing through every nerve in the body. She moaned and lifted her hands in mute supplication as Pangoy drew forth the whip.

Bound to the table, Kirin also saw and recognized the whip. The girl he fuzzily remembered had been friendly to himself and Doctor Temujin in their cell, hours or days before. Although his mind throbbed with red waves of pain and his body felt like it had been beaten with clubs on every square inch, he strove against the metal straps. And they shattered!

The squeal of rending metal screeched through the chamber. Pangoy jerked around, his face blank with amazement, to behold the Earthling’s nude body descending from the table. Those straps should have held a bull buphodon helpless. But they had shattered into atoms beneath one surge of the Earthling’s muscles!

He raised the whip against Kirin as the Earthling stumbled towards him. The power-pack in the hilt of the whip sparked with energy as Pangoy thumbed the power switch. Blue flickering flames wavered along the length of the lashing metal whip. The pungence of ozone filled the chamber.

Pangoy shook out the neuronic whip. Fiery sparks spat and crackled.

“Kirin, look out!” Caola cried. But the Earthling lurched forward, unheeding. Some nameless force rose within his mind, directing his steps. He was caught in the grip of an unseen master and sent staggering forward like a jointed puppet guided by an invisible hand.

Pangoy laughed and lashed out with the whip.

Kirin reached up and caught it. Fire sizzled about his arm, but unseen webs of force turned aside the electric flames before they could touch and sear his flesh. Force webs bent and the very fabric of space twisted. Energy was turned back upon its own source.

And the whip-handle exploded in Pangoy’s hand!

With a deafening retort the power-pack in the handle detonated. There was a fierce flash of white fire and the Mind Wizard recoiled, shrieking, clutching his burnt and blackened hand. Minute droplets of super-heated liquid metal sizzled, deeply imbedded in his seared flesh.

Caola watched, her eyes widening with incredulity, as Kirin advanced step by step upon the crippled Mind Wizard. Pangoy awoke to the danger that confronted him and turned from the Earthling’s path, hurrying over to the laboratory bench. There he snatched up the mind-amplifying helmet and set it upon his brows. His features were pale with agony and contorted with rage and baffled fury.

Never in the seven centuries of his surgically-prolonged existence had Pangoy of Nex been so outrageously treated. He lusted for revenge. Now, with the invincible mind helmet at his command, he could hold off a hundred warriors. Lights flashed into being amidst the sparkling coils of glass and metal that adorned the curiously-shapen helm.

He hurled a mental bolt at the naked Earthling.

The bolt of mind force was immaterial, but it struck like the blow of a sledge-hammer, thudding into Kirin’s belly. Breath gusted from his lungs. He sagged and fell forward to his knees, gasping with intolerable pain. The mental bolt had struck at those nerve-centers of the brain that registered pain. They stimulated the nerve-sequences connected to the Earthling’s solar plexus. The result was the exact neural simulation of a body blow of terrific force; there was no way of determining a genuine blow from a neurally-simulated one, since the nerve centers of Kirin’s brain could only register the pain caused.

As he sagged on his knees, gasping for breath, a lash of liquid fire seared his bent back. He stiffened erect under the fiery touch. Then a terrific blow to one temple sent him sprawling, his mind be-fogged. He clung to consciousness with tenacity, enduring the buffets that tore and flailed at his defenseless body. A red whirling mist arose to engulf his mind. He was moments from unconsciousness.

Then a surge of extraordinary vitality ran through him. It was as if in the last extremity of his endurance, he had tapped some hidden source of inner strength. Slowly, stiffly, incredibly, he rose to his feet, ignoring the whirling storm of invisible blows that lashed his flesh.

Pangoy gaped incredulously. Brows knotted in fury, he redoubled the frenzied attack.

But Kirin felt nothing. Invisible force ran throughout his body. Nerve centers were insulated against the simulated attacks of the mental bolts. The bolts were deflected. Kirin towered indomitable and victorious; the Mind Wizard was helpless to cause him harm.

Then the tide of battle turned. From somewhere, Kirin became aware of a weird extension of himself. He struck out with it and watched the Mind Wizard stagger back, reeling under a hail of invisible blows. It was an uncanny experience. Kirin had become aware of his brain as if it were an extra limb he had never used till now. Suddenly he knew precisely how to strike out with the power of his mind alone, how to hurl irresistible force into the brain of his opponent. Surging power drove from him. Bolts of mental fury slammed Pangoy against the wall. The helmet fell from his nodding brows and exploded in mid-air.

Kirin mentally plucked up the half-conscious Wizard and sent his helpless body crashing into the lab table. It went over in a cascade of shattering glass and splattering fluids. Chemicals mixed together, smoldering into flame. A spray of liquid fire splashed over the unconscious body of Pangoy. His torn robes ignited in a soundless flash. In a second he was sheathed in a chrysalis of blinding white fire.

Swaying numb and half-conscious amidst the shambles, Kirin suddenly came to himself again. His mysterious mastery of mental power vanished as inexplicably as it had come. Nerves no longer sustained against sensation now shrieked with pain. He felt numb, bruised, pummeled. He staggered and would have fallen amidst the running pools of flaming fluids, but Caola caught his arm and steadied him. He blinked through oily chemical smoke to peer at her tear-stained face.

“What happened?” he mumbled.

“I… don’t know,” she said faintly. “You fought Pangoy and… you conquered him!”

“Where is he?”

She tugged at his arm. “He is dead. Quick! We have little time to waste. The fire will be noticed. The alarm will be given and the metal men will come. Quick—here are your garments.”

With the help of the War Maid, Kirin struggled into his suit of grey celloflex, seamed it up, and followed her into the black opening that led to the secret passage through the walls of the citadel.

The door swung shut behind them on a scene of flaming wreckage amidst which the blacked corpse of Pangoy the Nexian lay staring mindlessly, contemplating nothingness.