He leapt up, but I flung myself at him. We began to wrestle across the littered floor, but then I got an armlock round his throat and squeezed the air from him until he passed out. Then I rose, took his sword and dagger, and continued on my way.
The corridors beyond the first one were a maze, but at length one widened out into a rather impressive corridor, high and roomy, leading towards a pair of heavy doors which seemed to be of solid bronze or some similar metal.
Perhaps these led to the stairs up to the main palace. I thought hopefully.
I opened the doors - and was confronted by one of the strangest sights of my life.
It was the treasure house of Mishim Tep, a huge vault with a low roof. In it were stacked works of the finest craftsmanship - indeed, artistry would be a better word. There were jewelled swords and chalices, chairs and great tables, pictures made of precious stones that seemed to give out their own light All were dusty and piled at random. Careless of their treasures, the Bradhis of Mishim Tep had stored them in darkness and ail-but forgotten about them!
I gasped at the wonder of it and could only stand there staring.
Then I saw Horguhl. She was absorbed with something, her back towards me. Even as I walked through the heaps of art treasures she did not seem to notice me. I took my dagger out and reversed it, planning to knock her on the head.
Then my foot slipped on a jewelled mosaic and I stumbled against one of the piles with a crash. It fell - and I fell with it
From the comer of my eye I saw Horguhl turn and snatch up one of the swords.
I tried to rise, but my feet slipped again. She raised the sword and was about to bring it down into my heart when she suddenly stood transfixed.
Her mouth gaped open. She was not paralysed - not in the way I had been when injected with the poison of the spider-men - but her muscles became slack and the sword dropped from her nerveless fingers.
I turned my head, wondering what she had seen, but a shout sounded suddenly:
‘Do not move!'
I recognised the voice. It was Toxo's. I obeyed his urgent order.
A little later the voice came again. 'Stand up, Michael Kane, but do not look back.'
I did as he said.
Horguhl still stood transfixed.
'Move to one side.'
I did so.
A little later I saw the bird-mask and the bright little eyes gleaming behind it.
'I found the treasure vaults.' Toxo patted a large sack he carried over his shoulder. 'But this young woman disturbed me. Evidently she was engaged in a similar project.'
'So this is what she planned,' I said. 'She told me that if I went with her we should want for nothing. She was not only scheming to bring catastrophe to Mishim Tep and Kamala, but to escape with the treasures as well. But what did you do to her?'
'I? Nothing. I was trying to come to your aid when I, too, slipped and grabbed at the nearest support. I seized some fabric - it must have been very old - and it ripped in my hand. I exposed some kind of mirror. I was just going to look and see what I had done when I noted the effect that mirror had on the young woman, so I thought it wise not to look after all. Then I shouted a warning to you.'
'The mirror!' I gasped. 'I have heard about it - an invention of the Sheev. Somehow it manipulates light so that whoever looks into it is mesmerised. More than that, it will destroy their will so that any question asked of them will bring forth the truth.'
This gave Toxo the opportunity to repeat his favourite rhetorical question: 'Ah, but what is truth? Do you think the mirror can really do all that?'
'Let us try,' I said. 'Horguhl - did you lie to the Bradhi of Mishim Tep about Michael Kane, Shizala and the rest?'
The voice that answered was weak but the word was clear enough.
'Yes.'
I was jubilant. A scheme was forming in my mind Keeping our backs to the mirror and our faces towards Horguhl, Toxo and I bound the girl, gagged her and - as a- precaution against her own hypnotic powers - blindfolded her. The moment her eyes were covered she began to struggle - but she was far too securely bound for her struggling to get her free!
For good measure I wrapped her in my cloak,
‘We shall need your cloak too, Toxo,' I said. We made a wide detour through the heaped gems until we were behind the mirror. Like all the treasures of Mishim Tep this, too, had been forgotten. How many centuries had this subtle invention lain gathering dust? Many, by the feel of the rotten fabric.
We draped Toxo's cloak over the mirror and wrapped it up. It was about a foot in diameter and was set with only a few gems. It was circular in shape and very heavy, with a handle like that of a shield. Perhaps it had been used as a weapon by the Sheev, but I thought not. Probably, if it had been used in war at all, it had been designed as a method for getting information from prisoners.
Somehow we managed to get both girl and mirror - and also Toxo's loot - out of the chamber and make our way to the roof without being seen.
The guard was still patrolling - or if it was not the same guard it was one very like him. We tapped him on the head - we had no time for caution - and left him dreaming on the roof as we used the rope to lower our bundles to the street.
Once in the street we sneaked along, pausing every so often to rest.
I was praying that, having so far succeeded, we should not now be caught. Everything depended on me reaching the airship. I told Toxo of this and he was interested.
'We shall need mounts to reach it,' he said as we came to the House of the Blue Dagger - which was at sleep, 255 thankfully. We took our prizes to our room and Toxo left He was away for half-an-hour and when he returned his eyes were gleaming with pleasure.
From somewhere he had stolen a carriage - a fast one, by the look of it - to which was harnessed a team of six daharas.
Toxo bundled Horguhl and me, together with his loot, into the back, covered us with a blanket, drew a hood over his face and whipped up the daharas.
I remember only being jolted along at an almost incredible speed. I remember an angry shout - from the guard at the gate, Toxo told me later - and then we were bumping over open countryside.
It was morning when I poked my head out from under die blanket. Somehow, in spite of the jolting. I had fallen asleep. Toxo was nudging me.
‘You must guide me now,’ he said.
I guided him willingly to where I had hidden the airship. We drew aside the brush and there she was, unharmed We began to load everything into the cabin, Toxo telling me that he would like to be dropped on the borders of the Crimson Plain near the robber city of Narlet - a city I knew well, a place of thieves and brigands where Toxo doubtless felt at home.
I agreed, since this was on my way. I was hoping to reach the two armies before they became engaged in conflict.
We were soon in the air and I stopped only once to allow Toxo to disembark with his sack of treasure, waved my thanks to the masked thief and then was rising again.
A few groans from Horguhl did nothing but assure me that she still lived - which was all I wanted to know at that stage.
Would I be in time?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Truth At Last!
There they were! I could not have left it any later!
The two armies - the large one of Mishim Tep and the smaller one of Kamala - were camped opposite one another on the Crimson Plain. It was a strange place to fight a battle, but doubtless the army of Mishim Tep had not expected to meet the Kamala at all - and the Kamala had simply marched until they encountered the Mishim Tep.
I could see their battle lines drawn up ready for the charge.
I could even see Camak seated on his great dahara, with Damad beside him, at the head of his men.
And there was the Bradhi of Mishim Tep, stem-faced, less glassy-eyed from what I could see - evidently Horguhl's hypnotising powers did not last indefinitely - at the head of his large army.
As my airship began to descend they all looked up -recognising
it at once. A few spears were flung at it from the ranks of Mishim Tep, but the Bradhi raised his hand to stop his men. He seemed curious.
I took my makeshift megaphone from its locker and shouted down to the Bradhi.
'Bradhi, I bring you proof that Horguhl lied - that you are about to engage in a senseless war entirely because of the lies of one evil woman!'
He passed a hand across his face. Then he frowned and shook his head as if to clear it.
'Will you allow me to descend and prove this to you?' I asked.
After a pause, he nodded wordlessly.
I lowered the ship until the cabin was bumping the tops of the crimson fems. Then, unceremoniously, I threw out the bundle that was Horguhl and, clutching the covered mirror in my hands, leapt after her. Swiftly I moored the ship and then dragged both the bound, gagged and blind-folded girl and my mirror over until I was standing in front of the ranks of Mishim Tep.
First I uncovered Horguhl and was rewarded by a gasp and a murmur. The Bradhi cleared his throat as if to speak but then changed his mind. Grim-lipped, he nodded at me again.
I took off the girl's gag, forcing her to stand upright
'Will you believe the truth from Horguhl's own lips, Bradhi?' I asked.
Again he cleared his throat.
‘Y-yes,' he said. Already his eyes were brightening visibly.
I pointed at the wrapped mirror. 'I have here the legendary Mirror of Trudi which the Sheev invented millennia ago. You have all heard of its magical properties. I shall demonstrate one of them now!'
With my back towards the men of Mishim Tep, I lifted the mirror-shield by its handle and pulled away the covering. Then I reached out and removed Horguhl's blindfold.
At once the mirror drew her eyes and she stood again slack-mouthed.
‘You see?' I said. ‘It works.’
They began to crowd closer to see that I spoke the truth. ‘Do not look directly into the mirror,' I warned them, 'or you will suffer the same effects. Are you ready to see if Horguhl told truth or lies to the Bradhi and seduced you all into launching this needless war against your age-old allies?'
‘We are,' said the Bradhi's voice from behind me, surprisingly deep and firm now.
'Horguhl,' I said slowly and clearly, 'did you lie to the Bradhi?'
The low, now spiritless, mindless voice said: ‘I did.'
‘How did you convince him?'
'By my powers - the powers in my eyes and my head.’
A gasp and a murmer at this. Again I heard the Bradhi clear his throat.
'And what lies did you tell him?’
'That Michael Kane and Shizala planned to kill and disgrace his son.'
'And who was really responsible for this?'
'I was!'
A roar went up then and the men began to move forward. I was sure many of them - none had really wished to fight this battle against their ancient allies - were ready to tear her to pieces. But the Bradhi stayed them.
Then the old man spoke. 'It has been proved to me that I was prey to this woman's evil powers. At first I believed that my son was a traitor - but then, when she came to me with another story, I would rather believe that one. It was a lie. I believed her first lie. I believed all her other lies. Michael Kane was right - she is evil - she almost brought utter ruin to the South.’
Then Camak and Damad cantered forward and Camak and Bolog Fas Ogdai laid hands on each other's shoulders and spoke quietly to one another in terms of friendship. There were tears in the eyes of both men.
Horguhl was tied, gagged and bound again and placed in a supply wagon in which she would eventually be taken back to the Jewelled City, to be tried there for her crimes.
The Bolog Fas Ogdai and a few of his nobles returned with us in our airship to Vamal - and Shizala.
There is little more to tell you save that the Bradhi of Mishim Tep was an honoured guest at the wedding of Shizala and myself. We spent a blissful honeymoon as guests of the Bradhi and later returned to Varnal, where I began supervising the building of more airships.
In order to get supplies of helium gas we organised an expedition to Mendishar and the desert beyond. In Mendi-shar a rule of great happiness had begun, with Hool Haji on the throne.
What a welcome I received from him! He had become convinced I was dead.
When we arrived at the Yaksha city we found the fountain blocked and the last of the ghouls lying dead near it. They had not the sense to clear it!
It was on our third expedition to Mendishar's desert - this time with a full fleet of airships! - that I decided to try a more complicated experiment, using the machines I had found in the forgotten city of the Yaksha.
You will remember that the work on my matter transmitter was connected with earlier work on laser rays. By investigating the construction of the Yaksha laser I was able to devise a method of building a matter transmitter that would send me back to Earth at almost the same instant I left.
That is how I am able to tell you my story..
EPILOGUE
‘So that is the explanation!' I gasped, looking at Michael Kane. 'You can travel at will now between Earth of our age and the Mars of yours!’
'Yes,' he replied with a smile. ‘And, moreover, I have sophisticated the whole technique. There is no need to shift the transmitter around - it can be kept in your wine cellar!'
'In that case, I shall have to find a new place to keep the wine,' I said.
'And what do you intend to do on Mars now?' I asked him.
'Well, I am a Bradhinak now, you know.' He half smiled. 'I am a Prince of the Kamala - a Prince of Mars. I have responsibilities. Kamala is still weak. Since it will take time to build up her man-power, I am concentrating on building up her new a/r-power!'
'And is the excitement all over - will there be no more adventures?'
Kane's lips quirked. ‘Oh, I am not so sure. I think there will be many more adventures - and I promise that if I survive them I will pay you more visits and tell you of them.'
'And I will publish them,' I said. 'People will regard them as fantasies - but let them. You and I know the truth.'
'Perhaps the others, too, will realise it some day.' he said.
Very soon after that he left, but I could not forget almost his last words to me.
‘There will be many more adventures!’ he had said.
I looked forward to hearing them.
THE END
Michael Moorcock, Lord of the Spiders or Blades of Mars
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends