THE SHIP OF ISHTAR: Sci-Fi Classic. Abraham Merritt
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for companion, Klaneth.”
Kenton saw the drummer make a covert warning gesture to Zuhran; saw the black priest’s eyes narrow.
“Ho! Ho!” laughed Gigi. “Zubran jests. Would he not find life there as tiresome as he pretends to find it with us? Is it not so, Zubran?”
Again he made the fleet, warning sigh. And the Persian heeded it.
“Yes, I suppose that is so,” he answered grudgingly. “At any rate — am I not sworn to Nergal? Nevertheless,” he muttered, “the gods gave women one art that has not grown tiresome since first they made the world.”
“They lose that art in Nergal’s abode,” said the black priest, grimly. “Best remember that and curb that tongue of yours lest you find yourself in a worse place than here — where at least you have your body.”
“May I speak, master?” asked Zachel; and Kenton felt threat in the glance the overseer shot at him.
The black priest nodded.
“I think he passed the barrier because he knows naught of our Lord,” said Zachel. “Indeed — may be an enemy of our Lord. If not — why was he able to shake off the hands of your priests, vanish in the sea — and return?”
“Enemy of Nergal!” Klaneth muttered.
“But it does not follow that he is friend of Ishtar,” put in the drummer, smoothly. “True if he were sworn to the Dark One he could not pass the barrier. But true is it also that were he sworn to Ishtar equally would that have been impossible.”
“True!” Klaneth’s face cleared. “And I know that sword — Nabu’s own blade.”
He was silent for a moment; thoughtful. When he spoke there was courtesy in the thick voice.
“Stranger,” he said, “if we have used you roughly, forgive us. Visitors are rare upon this craft. You — let me say — startled us out of our manners. Zachel, loose his bonds.”
The overseer bent and sullenly set Kenton free of his thongs.
“If, as I think, you come from Nabu,” went on the black priest, “I tell you that I have no quarrel with the Wise One or his people. Nor is my Master, the Lord of Death, ever at odds with the Lord of Wisdom. How could he be when one carries the keys of knowledge of this life, and the other the key that unlocks the door of the ultimate knowledge? Nay, there is no quarrel there. Are you a favored one of Nabu? Did he set you on the ship? And — why?”
Silent was Kenton, searching desperately for some way to answer the black priest. Temporize with him as he had with Sharane, he knew he could not. Nor, he knew, was it of any use to tell him the truth as he had told her — and been driven out like a hunted rat for it. Here was danger; peril, greater than he had faced in the rosy cabin. Klaneth’s voice cut in:
“But favored of Nabu as you may be, it seems that could not save you from losing his sword, nor from the javelins of Ishtar’s women. And if that is so — can it save you from my whip, my chains?”
And as Kenton stood, still silent, wolf light flared in the dead pupils and the black priest leaped to his feet crying:
“Answer me!”
“Answer Klaneth!” roared Gigi. “Has fear of him killed your tongue?”
Under the apparent anger of the drummer’s voice Kenton sensed a warning; friendliness.
“If that favor could have saved me, at least it did not,” he said sullenly.
The black priest dropped back upon the settle, chuckling.
“Nor could it save you if I decreed your death,” he said.
“Death — if he decrees it,” croaked Gigi. “Whoever you are,” went on the black priest, “whence you come, or how — one thing seems true. You have power to break a chain that irks me. Nay, Zachel, stay,” he spoke to the overseer who had made a move to go. “Your counsel is also good. Stay!”
“There is a slave dead at the oars,” said the overseer. “I would loose his chains and cast him over.”
“Dead,” there was new interest in Klaneth’s voice. “Which was he? How did he die?”
“Who knows?” Zachel shrugged his shoulders. “Of weariness, maybe. He was one of those who first set sail with us. He who sat beside the yellow-haired slave from the North whom we bought at Emakhtila.”
“Well — he had served long,” said the black priest. “Nergal has him. Let his body bear his chains a little longer. Stay with me.”
He spoke again to Kenton, deliberately, finally:
“I offer you freedom. I will give you honors and wealth in Emakhtila, where we shall sail as soon as you have done my bidding. There you shall have priesthood and a temple if you want them. Gold and women and rank — if you will do what I desire.”
“What must I do to win me all this?” asked Kenton. The black priest arose and bent his head so that his eyes looked straight into Kenton’s own. “Slay Sharane!” he said.
“Little meat in that, Klaneth,” the Persian spoke, mockingly. “Did you not see her girls beat him? As well send to conquer a lioness a man who has already been whipped by her cubs.”
“Nay,” said Klaneth, “I did not mean for him to pass over the open deck where surely her watchers would see him. He can clamber round the ship’s hull — from chain, ledge to ledge. There is a window behind the cabin wherein she sleeps. He can creep up and through it.”
“Best swear him to Nergal before he takes that road, master,” Zachel interrupted. “Else we may never have him back again.”
“Fool!” Gigi spoke. “If he makes his vows to Nergal perhaps he cannot go at all. How do we know that then the barrier will not be closed to him as it is to us who are sworn to the Dark One, even as it is to those who are sworn to Ishtar?”
“True,” nodded the black priest. “We dare not risk that. Well spoken, Gigi.”
“Why should Sharane be slain?” asked Kenton. “Let me take her for slave that I may repay her for her mockery and her blows. Give her to me — and you may keep all the riches and honors you have offered.”
“No!” The black priest leaned closer, searching more intently his eyes. “She must be slain. While she lives the Goddess has a vial into which to pour herself. Sharane dead — Ishtar has none on this ship through whom she may make herself manifest. This, I, Klaneth, know. Sharane dead, Nergal rules — through me! Nergal wins — through me!”
In Kenton’s mind a plan had formed. He would promise to do this — to slay Sharane. He would creep into her cabin, tell her of the black priest’s plot. Some way, somehow, make her believe him.
Too late he saw by the black priest’s face that Klaneth had caught his thought! Too late remembered that the sharp eyes of the overseer had been watching him, losing no fleeting change of expression; interpreting.
“Look, master!” Zachel snarled. “Look! Can you not read his thought, even as I? He cannot be trusted. You have held me here for counsel and have called my counsel good — then let me speak what is in my mind. I thought that this man had vanished from beside the mast, even as I told you. But did he? The gods come and go upon the ship as they will. But no man does. We thought we saw him struggling in the waves far behind the ship. But did we? By sorcery he may have lain all this while, hid in Sharane’s cabin. Out of her cabin we saw him come —”
“But driven forth by her women, Zachel,” broke in the drummer. “Cast out. Beaten. Remember that. There was no friendship there, Klaneth. They were at his throat like hounds tearing down a deer.”
“A play!” cried Zachel. “A play to trick you, master. They could have killed him. Why did they not? His wounds are but pin pricks. They drove him, yes, but where? Over to