Part 20 (1/2)

”Yes, here is the bracelet.”

”And the cloak of Portox?” demanded the Ape. ”The cloak Portox foretold you would wear?”

”I--I lost the cloak in my journey,” lied Hultax, not knowing about any cloak. There, he thought, that ought to satisfy him.

But the Ape said: ”There was no cloak.”

”No cloak? No cloak!”

”I made that up, to test you. You're not from Portox.”

The stallion pawed the ground and looked up and then down at Hultax, snorting. Hultax, trembling, wished he could melt into the ground.

”Still,” Hultax said, shaking, ”I am from Portox. You tried to trick me. You....”

”We shall see,” the Ape said, still pleasantly. ”Come.”

The ground rolled, or so it seemed to Hultax. The forest loomed ahead of him, then trees were all around him, then they stood on a rolling plain again.

”Where--did you take me?”

The Ape smiled. He seemed quite human despite his size, despite his fur. The stallion pawed the ground impatiently.

”Behold,” said the Ape.

Something on the fringe of the forest screamed. It was an awful sound and it made the hackles stand upright on Hultax's bull-neck. He drew his whip-sword and faced the forest.

”Well, man,” chided the Golden Ape, ”and do you need a weapon? Portox told us we would know his man because his man, unarmed, would be able to conquer the wild boar of the Kranuian Wood. And you?”

The screaming came again. Terrified, Hultax did not fling his weapon aside. Wild boar? What wild boar ... time enough later ... to convince the Ape....

The boar emerged. It was almost as big as a man and covered with dirty gray hair. Its tusks were two feet long. The stallion whinnied but remained perfectly still. The Golden Ape waited and watched. The boar charged.

Hultax's right arm blurred and the mobile blade of the whip-sword whizzed through air and struck the boar's meaty shoulder. The boar screamed, and came on.

It was, Hultax realized in despair, only a superficial wound. The boar came on, bleeding, furious. He tried to lunge aside. He yanked at the whip-sword and it came loose, making him lose his balance. The boar reached him, screaming.

Never slackening its pace, the boar gored him, and wheeled about, clods flying, to gore again. Hultax' voice bubbled in his throat. The boar was on him again, its tusks sharp as razors....

Finally it stood clear, nervously eyeing Byla.n.u.s and the stallion.

Then it turned and, slowly, with great dignity, retreated into the Kranuian Wood, which was its home.

The man, Byla.n.u.s saw at a glance, was dead. As an imposter, he had deserved to die. Byla.n.u.s quickly dug a shallow grave with a large, sharp-edged stone, and rolled the body in. As he did so he noticed that the bracelet--the bracelet of Portox-saviour, or, more probably, a copy of that bracelet intended to trick him--had been battered, punctured, and broken by the boar. Even if it had been the real bracelet, the amazing steel-silver disc of Portox-saviour, it would now be useless. Sighing, Byla.n.u.s buried it with Hultax' body.

Byla.n.u.s mounted his steed and galloped toward the river. He could have psychokinesthized himself there, but the day was brilliant and clear, and he was in no great hurry. At last he reached the wreck of the royal barge of Nadia. He did not pause to examine Jlomec's bier, he had seen such funerary devices before.