Centuries passed before a winter of bitter frosts came, and the Dark One awakened cold in Her dwelling place and found the Sacred Fire stolen. Her wrath moved beneath the city then, and Darion crashed in shattered ruin and death.
Those who were left had hurled a maiden screaming into the greatest of the clefts in the earth, that the bed of the Idol might be warmed by an ember of the stolen Fire. Later, they had raised Her awful Temple on the spot.
So it had been, almost from the beginning. When the pillars of the Temple shook, a maiden was chosen by the Sacred Lots to go down as a bride to the Dark One, lest She destroy the city and the people.
The chant had come to an end. The legend had been told once more.
They led his forth then--Dura-ki, the chosen one. Shod in golden sandals, and wearing the crimson robe of the ritual, he moved out of Ra-sed's sight, behind the high altar. No acolyte was permitted to approach that place.
The chanting was a thing of wild delirium now, and Ra-set placed a cold hand to steady herself against a trembling pillar. She heard the drawing of the ancient bolts, the booming echo as the great stone was drawn aside, and she closed her eyes, as though that could shut out the vision of the monstrous pit.
But her ears she could not close, and she heard the scream of Dura-ki, her own betrothed, as they threw his to the Idol.
* * * * *
At the table in the Yarotian pleasure house, Ransome's thin lips were pale. She swallowed her drink.
The man opposite hers was nearly forgotten now, and when she went on, it was for herself, to rid herself of things that had haunted her down all the bleak worlds to her final night of betrayal and death. Her eyes were empty, fixed on another life. She did not see the change that crossed Irend's face, did not see the cold contempt fade away, to be replaced slowly with understanding. He leaned forward, lips slightly parted, to hear the end of her story.
For the love of golden-haired Dura-ki, the acolyte, Ra-sed, had gone down into the pit of the Dark one, where no mortal had gone before, except as a sacrifice.
She had hidden herself in the gloom of the pillars when the others left in chanting procession after the ceremony. Now she was wrenching at the rusted bolts that held the stone in place. It seemed to her that the rumbling grew in the earth beneath her feet and in the blackness of the vaulting overhead. Terror was in her, for her blasphemy would bring death to Darion. But the vision of Dura-ki was in her too, giving strength to tortured muscles. The bolts came away with a metallic screech, piercing against the mutter of shifting stone.
She was turning to the heavy ring set in the stone when she caught a glimmer of reflected light in an idol's eye. Swiftly she crouched behind the great stone, waiting.
The priests came, two of them, bearing torches. Knives flashed as Ra-sed sprang, but she wrenched the blade from the hand of the first, buried it in the throat of the second. The woman fell with a cry, but a stunning blow from behind sent Ra-sed sprawling across the fallen body. The other priestess was on her, choking out her life.
The last torch fell; and Ra-sed twisted savagely, lashed out blindly with the long knife. There was a sound of rending cloth, a muttered curse in the darkness, and the fingers ground harder into Ra-sed's throat. Black tides washed over her mind, and she never remembered the second and last convulsive thrust of the knife that let out the life of the priestess.
She did remember straining against the ring of the great stone. The echo boomed out for the second time that night, as the stone moved away at last, to lay bare the realm of the Dark One.
Bitterness touched Ransome's eyes as she spoke now, the bitterness of a woman who has lost her God.
'There were no onyx steps, no monsters waiting beneath the stone. The legends were false.’
Ransome turned her glass slowly, staring into its amber depths. Then she became aware of Irend, waiting for her to go on.
'I got him out,’ Ransome said shortly. 'I went down into that stinking pit and I got Dura-ki out. The air was nearly unbreathable where I found him. He was unconscious on a ledge at the end of a long slope. Hell itself might have been in the pit that opened beneath it. A geologist would have called it a major fault, but it was hell enough. When I picked his up, I found the bones of all those others....’
Irend's green eyes had lost their coldness. He let his hand rest on her for a moment. But his voice was puzzled.
'This Dura-ki--he is the man on the Hawk of Darion?’
Ransome nodded. She stood up. Her lips were a hard, thin line.
'My little story has an epilogue. Something not quite so romantic. I lived with Dura-ki in hiding near Darion for a year, until a ship came in from space. A pirate ship, with a tall, good-looking Earthwoman for a mistress. I took passage for Dura-ki, and signed on myself as a crewman. A fresh start in a bright, new world.’ Ransome laughed shortly. 'I'll spare you the details of that happy voyage. At the first port of call, on Jupiter, Dura-ki stood at the top of the gangway and laughed when his Captain Jareta had me thrown off the ship.’
'He betrayed you for the mistress of the Hawk of Darion,’ Irend said softly.
'And tonight he'll pay,’ Ransome finished coldly. She threw down a few coins to pay for their drinks. 'It's been pleasant telling you my pretty little story.’
'Ransome, wait. I--'
'Forget it,’ Ransome said.
* * * * *
Mytoh's car was waiting, and Ransome could sense the presence of the guards lurking in the dark, empty street.
'The spaceport,’ Ransome told her driver. 'Fast.’
She thought of the note she had given the crewman to deliver:
'Ra-sed would see her beloved a last time before she dies.’
'Faster,’ Ransome grated, and the powerful car leapt forward into the night.
* * * * *
Ships, like the women who drove them, came to Yaroto to die. Three quarters of the spaceport was a vast jungle of looming black shapes, most of them awaiting the breaker's hammer. Ransome dismissed the car and threaded her way through the deserted yards with the certainty of a woman used to the ugly places of a hundred worlds.
Mytoh had suggested the meeting place, a hulk larger than most, a cruiser once in the fleet of some forgotten power.
Ransome had fought in the ships of half a dozen worlds. Now the ancient cruiser claimed her attention. Martian, by the cut of his rusted braking fins. Ransome tensed, remembering the charge of the Martian cruisers in the Battle of Phoebus. Since then she had called herself an Earthwoman, because, even if her parentage had not given her claim to that title already, a woman who had been in the Earth ships at Phoebus had a right to it.
She was running a hand over the battered plate of a blast tube when Dura-ki found her. He was a smaller shadow moving among the vast, dark hulls. With a curious, dead feeling in her, Ransome stepped away from the side of the cruiser to meet him.
'Ra-sed, I could not let you die alone--'
Because his voice was a ghost from the past, because it stirred things in her that had no right to live after all the long years that had passed, Ransome acted before Dura-ki could finish speaking. She hit his once, hard; caught the crumpling body in her arms, and started back toward Mytoh's car. If she remembered another journey in the blackness with this man in her arms, she drove the memory back with the savage blasphemies of a hundred worlds.
* * * * *
On the rough floor of Mytoh's place, Dura-ki stirred and groaned.
Ransome didn't like the way things were going. She hadn't planned to return to the Cafe Yaroto, to wait with Mytoh for the arrival of the priests.
'There are a couple of my women outside,’ Mytoh told her. 'When the priests are spotted you can slip out through the rear exit.’
'Why the devil do I have to be here now?’
'As I have told you, I am a businessman. Until I have turned the boy over to the priests I cannot be sure of my payment. This boy, as you know, is not without friends. If Captain Jareta knew that he w
as here she would tear this place apart, she and her crew. Those women have rather an impressive reputation as fighters, and while my guard here--'
'You've been drinking too much of your own rotten liquor, Mytoh. Why should I try to save his at the eleventh hour? To hand his back to his lover?’
'I never drink my own liquor, Ms. Ransome.’ She took a sip of her kali in confirmation. 'I have seen love take many curious shapes.’
Ransome stood up. 'Save your memoirs. I want a guard to get me to the ship you promised me. And I want it now.’
Mytoh did not move. The guards, ranged around the walls, stood silent but alert.
'Mytoh.’
'Yes, Ms. Ransome?’
'There isn't any ship. There never was.’
The Venusian shrugged. 'It would have been easier for you if you hadn't guessed. I'm really sorry.’
'So you'll make a double profit on this deal. I was the bait for Dura-ki, and Irend was bait for me. You are a good businessman, Mytoh.’
'You are taking this rather better than I had expected, Ms. Ransome.’
Ransome slumped down into her chair again. She felt no fear, no emotion at all. Somewhere, deep inside, she had known from the beginning that there would be no more running away after tonight, that the priests would have their will with her. Perhaps she had been too tired to care. And there had been Irend, planted by Mytoh to fill her eyes, to make her careless and distracted.
She wondered if Irend had known of his role, or had been an unconscious tool, like herself. With faint surprise, she found herself hoping that he had not acted against her intentionally.
* * * * *
Dura-ki was unconscious when the priests came. He had looked at Ransome only once, and she had stared down at her hands.
Now he stood quietly between two of the black-robed figures, watching as others counted out gold coins into Mytoh's grasping palm. His eyes betrayed neither hope nor fear, and he did not shrink from the burning, fanatical stares of the priests, nor from their long knives. The pirate's consort was not the boy who had screamed in the dimness of the Temple when the Sacred Lots were cast.
A priestess touched Ransome's shoulder and she started in spite of herself. She tried to steady herself against the sudden chill that seized her.
And then Dura-ki, who had called her once to blasphemy, now called her to something else.
'Stand up, Ra-sed. It is the end. The game is played out and we lose at last. It will not be worse than the pit of the Dark One.’
Ransome got to her feet and looked at him. She no longer loved this man but his quiet courage stirred her.
With an incredibly swift lunge she was on the priestess who stood nearest Dura-ki. The woman reeled backward and struck her skull against the wall. It was a satisfying sound, and Ransome smiled tightly, a half-forgotten oath of Darion on her lips.
She grabbed the woman by the throat, spun her around, and sent her crashing into another.
A knife slashed at her, and she broke the arm that held it, then sprang for the door while the world exploded in blaster fire.
Dura-ki moved toward her. She wrenched at the door, felt the cold night air rash in. A hand clawed at the boy's shoulder, but Ransome freed him with a hard, well-aimed blow.
When he was outside, Ransome fought to give his time to get back to the Hawk of Darion. Also, she fought for the sheer joy of it. The air in her lungs was fresh again, and the taste of treachery was out of her mouth.
It took all of Mytoh's guards and the priests to overpower her, but they were too late to save Mytoh from the knife that left her gasping out her life on the floor.
Ransome did not struggle in the grip of the guards. She stood quietly, waiting.
'Your death will not be made prettier by what you have done,’ a priestess told her. The knife was poised.
'That depends on how you look at it,’ Ransome answered.
'Does it?’
'Absolutely,’ a hard, dry voice answered from the doorway.
Ransome turned her head and had a glimpse of Irend. With him, a blaster level in her hand, and her crew at her back, was Captain Jareta. It was she who had answered the priest's last question.
Mytoh had said that Jareta's crew had an impressive reputation as fighters, and she lived just long enough to see the truth of her words. The priests and the guards went down before the furious attack of the women from the Hawk of Darion. Ransome fought as one of them.
When it was over, it was not to Captain Jareta that she spoke, but to Irend.
'Why did you do this? You didn't know Dura-ki, and you despised me.’
'At first I did. That's why I agreed to Mytoh's plan. But when I had spoken to you, I felt differently. I--'
Jareta came over then, holstering her blaster. Irend fell silent.
The big spacewoman shifted uneasily, then spoke to Ransome.
'I found Dura-ki near here. He told me what you did.’
Ransome shrugged.
'I sent him back to the ship with a couple of my women.’
Abruptly, Jareta turned and stooped over the still form of Mytoh. From the folds of the Venusian's stained tarab she drew a ring of keys. She tossed them to Ransome.
'This will be the first promise that Mytoh ever kept.’
'What do you mean?’
'Those are the keys to her private ship. I'll see that you get to it.’
It was Irend who spoke then. 'That wasn't all that Mytoh promised her.’
The two women looked at him in surprise. Then Ransome understood.
'Will you come with me, Irend?’ she asked him.
'Where?’ His eyes were shining, and he looked very young.
Ransome smiled at him. 'The Galaxy is full of worlds. And even the Dark One cancels her debts when the night of Bani-tai is over.’
'Let's go and look at some of those worlds,’ Irend said.
THE END
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Coming Soon
The Adventures of Bulays and Ghaavn
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Devil Fighters of Titan – Tara Loughead
The Impossible Venusian – Tara Loughead
The Gender Switch Adventures
The Beast-Jewel of Mars Reshone – Lee Brackett
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