Part 3 (1/2)

She had not liked Mazdak. The sardonic adventurer was coldly masterful in his relations with women, keeping a large harem and letting none command or persuade him in the slightest. Because Rufia could endure no rival, she had not been displeased when Mazdak had gambled her away to his rival Othbaal.

The Anaki was more to her taste. Despite a streak of cruelty and treachery, the man was strong, vital, and intelligent. Best of all, he could be managed. He only needed a spur to his ambition, and Rufia supplied that. She had started him up the s.h.i.+ning rungs of the ladder-and now he had been slain by a pair of masked murderers who had sprung from nowhere.

Engrossed in her bitter thoughts, she looked up with a start as a tall, hooded figure stepped from the shadows of an overhanging balcony and confronted her. Only his eyes burned at her, almost luminous in the starlight. She cowered back with a low cry.

”A woman on the streets of Asgalun!” The voice was hollow and ghostly.

”Is this not against the king's commands?”

”I walk not the streets by choice, lord,” she answered. ”My master has been slain, and I fled from his murderers.”

The stranger bent his hooded head and stood statue-like. Rufia watched him nervously. There was something gloomy and portentous about him. He seemed less like a man pondering the tale of a chance-met slave-girl than a somber prophet weighing the doom of a sinful people. At last he lifted his head.

”Come,” said he. ”I will find a place for you.”

Without pausing to see if she obeyed, he stalked away up the street.

Rufia hurried after him. She could not walk the streets all night, for any officer of the king would strike off her head for violating the edict of King Akhirom. This stranger might be leading her into worse slavery, but she had no choice.

Several times she tried to speak, but his grim silence struck her silent in turn. His unnatural aloofness frightened her. Once she was startled to see furtive forms stealing after them.

”Men follow us!” she exclaimed.

”Heed them not,” answered the man in his weird voice.

Nothing was said until they reached a small arched gate in a lofty wall. The stranger halted and called out. He was answered from within.

The gate opened, revealing a black mute holding a torch. In its light, the height of the robed stranger was inhumanly exaggerated.

”But this-this is a gate of the Great Palace!” stammered Rufia.

For answer, the man threw back his hood, revealing a long pale oval of a face, in which burned those strange, luminous eyes.

Rufia screamed and fell to her knees. ”King Akhirom!”

”Aye, King Akhirom, O faithless and sinful one!” The hollow voice rolled out like a bell. ”Vain and foolish woman, who ignores the command of the Great King, the King of Kings, the King of the World, which is the word of the G.o.ds! Who treads the street in sin, and sets aside the mandates of the Good King! Seize her!”

The following shadows closed in, becoming a squad of Negro mutes. As their fingers seized her flesh, Rufia fainted.

The Ophirean regained consciousness in a windowless chamber whose arched doors were bolted with bars of gold. She stared wildly about for her captor and shrank down to see him standing above her, stroking his pointed, graying beard while his terrible eyes burned into her soul.

”O Lion of Shem!” she gasped, struggling to her knees. ”Mercy!”

As she spoke, she knew the futility of the plea. She was crouching before the man whose name was a curse in the mouths of the Pelishtim; who, claiming divine guidance, had ordered all dogs killed, all vines cut down, all grapes and honey dumped into the river; who had banned all wine, beer, and games of chance; who believed that to disobey his most trivial command was the blackest sin conceivable. He roamed the streets at night in disguise to see that his orders were obeyed.

Rufia's flesh crawled as he stared at her with unblinking eyes.

”Blasphemer!” he whispered. ”Daughter of evil! O Pteor!” he cried, flinging up his arms. ”What punishment shall be devised for this demon?

What agony terrible enough, what degradation vile enough to render justice? The G.o.ds grant me wisdom!”

Rufia rose to her knees and pointed at Akhirom's face. ”Why call on the G.o.ds?” she shrieked. ”Call on Akhirom! You are a G.o.d!”

He stopped, reeled, and cried out incoherently. Then he straightened and looked down at her. Her face was white, her eyes staring. To her natural acting ability was added the terror of her position.

”What do you see, woman?” he asked.