The Edmond Hamilton MEGAPACK ®. Edmond Hamilton
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Bladomir had mounted his horse. The stoical old desert chieftain and his men called their farewells, and then rode back westward.
They had left horse and sword for Golden Wings. She rode knee to knee with Khal Kan as they spurred up the sloping sands toward the first red ridges of the Dragals.
Dusk came upon them hours later as they climbed the steep pass toward the highest ridge of the range. One of the pink moons was up and the other was rising. The desert was a vague unreality far behind and below.
“Look back and you can see the campfires of your people,” he told the girl.
Her dark head did not turn. “My people are ahead now, in Jotan.”
They topped the ridge. A yell of horror burst from Brusul.
“The Bunts are in Galoon! Hell take the green devils—they’ve marched leagues north in the last two days!”
Khal Kan’s fierce rage choked him as he too saw. Far, far to the east beneath the rosy moons, the lowland plain below the Dragals stretched out to the silvery immensity of the Zambrian Sea.
Down there to the right, on the coast, should have shone the bright lights of the city Galoon, southern most port of Jotanland.
But instead the city was scarred by hideous red fires, that smoldered through the night like baleful, unwinking eyes.
“Egir’s led the green men farther north than I dreamed!’” Khal Kan muttered. “Oh, damn that traitor! If I had my sword at his throat—”
“We’d best ride hard for Jotan before we’re cut off,” Zoor cried.
They rode north along the ridges, until the red fires of burning Galoon receded from sight. Then they moved down the western slopes of the mountains, and galloped on north along the easier coast road.
Galloping under the rosy moons, Khal Kan pointed far along the shore to a yellow beacon-fire atop the lighthouse tower outside Jotan.
The square black towers of Jotan loomed sheer on the edge of the silver sea, surrounded by the high black wall which had only two openings—a big water-gate on the sea side, and a smaller gate on the other. The rosy moonlight glinted off the arms of sentries posted thick on the wall, and a sharp challenge was flung down as Khal Kan rode up to the closed gate.
Joyful cries greeted the disclosure of his identity. The gates ground slowly open, and he and Golden Wings galloped in with Brusul and Zoor. Khal Kan led the way through the black-paved stone streets of Jotan to the low, brooding mass of the palace.
When, with Golden Wings’ hand in his, he hurried into the great domed, torchlit marble Hall of the Kings, he found his father awaiting him.
Kan Abul’s iron-hard face seemed even grimmer than usual.
“The Bunts—” Khal Kan began, but the king finished for him.
“I know—the green men have captured and sacked Galoon, led by my traitorous brother. We’ve been gathering our forces. Tomorrow we march south to attack—it’s good you*re in time to join us. But who’s this?”
Khal Kan grinned. “I found no Bunts over the Dragais, but I did find a princess for Jotan. They call her Golden Wings—Bladomir’s daughter.”
Kan Abul grunted. “A dryland princess? Well, you’ve made a bad bargain, girl—this son of mine’s an empty-skulled rascal. And tomorrow he goes south with us to battle.”
“And I go with him!” declared Golden Wings. “Do you think I’m one of your Jotan girls that cannot ride or fight?”
Khal Kin laughed. “We’ll argue that the morrow.”
Later that night, in his great chamber of seaward windows, with Golden Wings sleeping in his arms, Khal Kan also slept—
* * * *
Henry Stevens brooded as he sat waiting in the office of the psychoanalyst, the next afternoon. Things couldn’t go on this way! He’d been reprimanded twice this day by Carson for neglect of his work.
Since he’d awakened this morning, the danger to Jotan had been obsessing his thoughts.
It was queer, but he had had more time to reflect upon the peril than had Khal Kan himself in the dream.
“You can go in now, Mr. Stevens,” smiled the receptionist.
Doctor Thorn’s alert young eyes caught the haggardness of Henry’s face but he was casual as he pushed cigarettes across the desk.
“You had the same dream last night?” he asked Henry.
Henry Stevens nodded. “Yes, and things are getting worse—over there in Thar. The Bunts have taken Galoon in some way, and Egir must be planning to lead them on against Jotan.”
“Egir?” questioned the psychoanalyst.
Henry explained. “Egir was my—I mean Khal Kan’s—uncle, the younger brother of Kan Abul. He’s a renegade to Jotan. He fled from there about—let’s see, about four Thar years ago, after Kan Abul discovered his plot to usurp the throne. Since then, he’s been conspiring with the Bunts.”
Henry took a pencil and drew a little map on a sheet of paper. It showed a curving, crescent-like coast.
“This is the Zambrian Sea,” he explained. “On the north of this indented gulf is Jotan, my city—I mean, Khal Kan’s city. Away to the south here across the gulf is Buntland, where the barbarian green men live. On the coast between Buntland and Jotan are the independent city of Kaubos and the southernmost Jotanian city of Galoon.
“When my uncle Egir fled to the Bunts,” Henry went on earnestly, “he stirred them up to attack Kaubos, which they captured. We’ve been planning an expedition to drive them out of there. Five days ago I rode over the Dragal Mountains with two comrades to reconnoiter a possible route by which we could make a surprise march south. But now the Bunts are moving north and have sacked Galoon. There’s a big battle coming—”
Henry paused embarrassedly. He had suddenly awakened from his intense interest in exposition to become aware that Doctor Thorn was not looking at the map, but at his face.
“I know it all sounds crazy, to talk about a dream this way,” Henry mumbled. “But I can’t help worrying about Jotan. You see, if it turned out that Thar was real and that this was the dream—”
He broke off again, and then finished with an earnest plea. “That’s why I must know which is real—Thar or Earth, Khal Kan or myself!”
Doctor Thorn considered gravely. The young psychiatrist did not ridicule Henry’s bafflement, as he had half expected.
“Look at it from my point of view,” Thorn proposed. “You think it’s possible that I may be only a figment in a world dreamed by Khal Kan each night. But I know that I’m real, though I can’t very well prove it.”
“That’s it,” Henry murmured discouragedly. “People always take for granted that this world is real—they never even imagine that it may be just a dream. But none of them could prove that it isn’t a dream.”
“But suppose you could prove that Thar is a dream?” Thorn pursued. “Then you’d know that this must be the real existence.”
Henry considered. “That’s true. But how can I do that?”
“I want you to take this memory across into the dream-life with you tonight,” Doctor Thorn said earnestly. “I want you, when you awake as Khal Kan, to say over and over to yourself—‘This isn’t real. I’m not real. Henry Stevens and Earth are the reality’.”
“You think that will have some effect?” Henry asked doubtfully.
“I think that in time your dream-world will begin to fade, if you keep saying that,” the psychoanalyst declared.
“Well, I’ll